Earnings Labs

HDFC Bank Limited (HDB)

Q3 2022 Earnings Call· Mon, Jan 17, 2022

$25.41

-1.19%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening, and welcome to HDFC Bank Limited's Q3 FY'22 Earnings Conference Call on the financial results presented by the management of HDFC Bank. As a reminder, all participants' lines will be in a listen-only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the brief commentary by the management. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Srinivasan Vaidyanathan, Chief Financial Officer, HDFC Bank. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

Good evening and a warm welcome to all the participants. First to start with the environment and the policies that we operated in the quarter were conducive for growth with good tailwinds from monetary and fiscal policy. You all know about the activity indicators getting better in Q3, like the PMI, GST collections, e-way bills et cetera, et cetera but also up-to-date about the CPI or RBI policy rate stance and the liquidity conditions. Now in that backdrop, the equity capital market was robust in the quarter. Private issuance raising almost INR82,000 crores, we were mandated for eight IPOs. Indian bond market also saw total fund raise of approximately INR1.87 lakh crores in the quarter. The Bank maintained its ranking as one of the top three arrangers in the INR bond market. With that, let's go through five themes at a high level so for we delve into the quarter financials. One, the Bank's balance sheet continues to get stronger, for instance, the capital adequacy ratio is at 19.5%, CET1 at 17.1%. Liquidity is strong as reflected in our average LCR for the quarter at 123%. Balance sheet remains resilient. The GNP ratio is at 1.26%, floating and contingent provisions aggregating for INR10,100 crores has been derisking the balance sheet and positioning for growth. Two, investments in key enablers are picking up in executing our strategy. We opened 93 branches in the quarter, 171 branches year-to-date nine months period. To give additional context, we have added 525 branches over the past 21 months that is during the COVID period positioning us for capitalizing the opportunity. We've onboarded little more than 5,000 people in the quarter, 14,300-plus people during the nine months period. We have onboarded about 17,400 people over the past 21 months during the COVID period to get the…

Operator

Operator

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Mahrukh Adajania form Elara Capital. Please go ahead.

Mahrukh Adajania

Analyst

Hello, congratulations. My first question is on credit cost. So if the total credit cost, including contingencies has come below 100 after many quarters, around three years. Now assuming that there is no further COVID wave, is that the new normal we are likely to see over the next few quarters?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

Mahrukh, thank you. Hope that can…

Operator

Operator

Excuse me, sir. I'm so sorry to interrupt. May I please request you to speak closer to the phone, sir. Your audio is not clearly audible.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

Okay. All right. Yes, I moved my chair, but it's okay. Yes, Mahrukh, thank you. Yes, a valid question and appropriate. Thanks for asking that. See, we are coming from a COVID cycle where our bookings have been -- from a retail point of view, have been benign. Second, from a wholesale point of view, which we have shown, very highly rated context, right? So, we come through the cycle and now starting to begin to get the retail account. The recent vintages, when you look at the recent vintage performance, they are far superior both the entry-level scores and the customer profile in terms of how we opened up and started, they are superior, right? And whether is this is a new norm? I would not say that this is a new norm, right? This is to you have to look at credit cost normally over a cycle, over period of a few years, you have to look through a cycle. And that's how you need to look at it. But if you look at our NPA, 1.26%, can bounce around at anytime 10, 20 basis points up and down, two quarters ago, 1.47%, now 1.26%. So it can go up and down within a small range, that's where it can come. From a credit cost point of view, well, we have not given a particular outlook as such. But we have averaged in the past, call it, 1.2, 1.3 thereabout, that's the kind of range at which the total cost of credit, total provisions that have come up with. Current quarter is at about 95. So that we call it a little lower than that, right? So in a broad range, if you think about 100 to 150 kind of a basis points, that's where in last -- go back to pre-COVID, that's the kind of range at which we are operating, right? And the credit costs are lower. Then the way we look at it is, it calls for experimenting a few things. It calls for opening up policy. So, there is a policy reaction that comes in, right? There's always that the pull and pressure between the business and the credits that happen. So I wouldn't take that 50 or 60 basis points, total credit cost of the specific losses or the total cost of 95 basis points as a good standard for a long time to come. But this is the current corporate that we are.

Mahrukh Adajania

Analyst

And my next question is on fees. You did mention that payment and credit card-related fees declined, but were there any one-offs or -- I mean, if you could give more color, was there any one-off or big client promotional expenses, which won't recur so that we know or we can get a fair outlook on the trajectory in the next few quarters?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

Okay. Yes. Again, a good quick question. Thank you. See, the fees INR5,000-odd crores that we reported is 2%, right? In the past, we have done pre-COVID if you think about it before that we are very well confirmed and so forth, we have done 20-odd percent or so. We have consistently set the way to think about the fees somewhere where it settled mid- to high-teens kind of places, where it can settle, right? And again, this quarter, if you think about excluding the payment product, it is at about 17%. Payment products have been unusually low. There are a few things to think about on the payment products. One, as I alluded to, we offered certain fee waivers to incentivize customer engagement, right? So that's one thing which doesn't need to recur every quarter, but it can happen every other quarter, depending on what programs we run, right? So that's part of running the business and the sort of growing the franchise, right? So that's one thing to think about. Second, even from cards point of view, from a credit -- I think I alluded to in terms of how customer behavior from a late payment point of view, right, is that the customers are paying very much on plan. So that is reflected there too. So the opportunity that we used to get from a late payment definitely doesn't come through. Customers used to take cash advances, that is on the lower end, right? So the cycle has to turn a little more on that, and so we see some cash advances coming through, right? And from a policy point of view, until recently, we were tight on the credit limits, right? So when there is a credit limit, over the credit limit, there is some fees…

Mahrukh Adajania

Analyst

But how -- in your assessment, how many quarters would it take to reach that long term?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

See, it depends -- it's a combination of both the environment, the economic activity in the environment and the customer behavior to get on with that. Could be two, three, four quarters, I would expect that I don't want to venture to predict exactly what it is because there's no exact time to tell where it is. But typically, that is what you will see that it takes for a maturity model to operate. And similarly, the same thing applies to -- if you think about the PPOP, it is very similar, right, whether as the loan growth get back, the PPOP should more or less mimic the loan growth. That is what historically that we have shown, that is where historically we have performed, right? That is the kind of what the loan growth is the headline. That's what most of the lines operate tends to be similar as we go along.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from the line of Alpesh Mehta from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead.

Alpesh Mehta

Analyst

The first question is about the reconciliation between the -- on the restructured loans. What we see in the notes to accounts, that works to be around 23,000, that is 1.37 works out to be around 17,000. So how do you reconcile both these numbers?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

Okay. When you see what you said --

Alpesh Mehta

Analyst

When I see notes to accounts, the total number works out to be around INR18,000 crores, plus there would be a R1 number. So both put together is around 25, 900. Notes to accounts also mentions that the double counting between R1 and R2 is around INR2,700 crores or something like that. So the net number works out to be around INR23,200 crores, whereas our comment shows that it's around INR17,200 crores -- so what's the -- that is a gap of this around INR6,000 crores?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

Okay. Got it. Got your question. See, it is based on what's the template, right? Somebody signed the template, and we fill the template up and put up there, right? So that's something different. And so good point that you raised, right? The 25,000, what was there is we view grant as a restructuring in R1 and R2 when you add up, that's what it is. And if you eliminate the double count, it is like 22,000, right? This originally has granted in several points impact. That means whenever it was granted at those points in time, right? What was the number? That is what you see there. Last September, we reported INR18,000 crores, right, last September. And currently, we say INR1.37 crores, that is INR17,500 crores or so. So first, the INR18,400 crores to INR17,500 crores, the moment, they called that about INR900 crores of movement, that half of it has moved to NPA, half of it is a net of various recoveries and adjustments. So that's a part of what from September to December, things have moved, right. But between the INR22,000 crores to what we reported in September INR18,000 crores, that is a net of whatever happened before September, which is between what happened to NPA, what happened to various recoveries and adjustment around that time, right, as we speak in September. That's part of -- I think some of you have picked up the number of what was originally granted, but what was outstanding as of September is INR18,000 crores, and now it's INR17,500.

Alpesh Mehta

Analyst

Okay. So Srini, just correct me if I'm wrong. If I look at the September disclosure, right, the R1 plus R2 minus the double counting, as per the notes to accounts was around INR22,500 crores, of which, there were NPLs and the amount repaid of the R1 amount that you mentioned in the notes to accounts. So that number was around INR20,400 crores. Whereas as per our disclosure in September was INR18,200 crores. So the INR2,000 crores, what's the difference between the amount which was reported as of September and between your result date, is that my understanding correct?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

Correct, various other recoveries and other things that came until the reporting date.

Alpesh Mehta

Analyst

Okay. And right now also, is a similar situation wherein you have not reported the NPLs and the repaid amount out of R1 and R2. So the -- as for the notes to account, it could be around INR23,200 crores, but after the recovery, NPLs, everything and the repayment, et cetera, it's around INR17,500 crores.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

This quarter, notes to account simply calls for -- it was again mandated, right, -- calls for reporting only R2 as originally granted, which is reflecting INR18,000 crores or something in the notes. INR18,000 crores is not the outstanding, right? INR17,500 crores is outstanding. So whatever was mandated to show in the note, that's what we showed. But both when I talked and I gave the 1.37, that is INR17,500 crores.

Alpesh Mehta

Analyst

This is R1 -- R2 whatever is the restructuring outstanding on the balance sheet that is the number that you are mentioning...

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

That is correct.

Alpesh Mehta

Analyst

Okay. The second question on the -- can you just give some qualitative comments related to the tenure of this book? You mentioned as one of your comment that 10, 20 basis points would be shifting to gross NPL at any given point in time. But that will be a situation that almost 25%, 30% of this group can slip over a period of next one year. So when we are talking about 10, 20 basis points of that particular quarter or over the tenure of the book -- so for example, it was around 1.37, then out of this 1.37, only 20 basis points can slip into NPL category. I just wanted to clarify that number.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

Okay. By the way, there is no particular sign for 10, 20 or something. This is based on what our analytics comes up to say based on what experience we have seen based on the customer profile, which I alluded to say, for example, the one that I gave about 40% are secured, right, fully collateralized and with a good CIBIL score, which we feel very comfortable with, right? Then on the unsecured portion, we said about, call it, roughly about two-thirds or so are salaried customers where we feel quite comfortable, right? And then on the balance, where we keep watch, about 40% or so have good CIBIL score, CIBIL score more than 700 or so, right? So based on various these kind of analysis, that's where we said we feel comfortable that when 20 basis points at any particular point in time, that can be within our tolerable range, right? And from a restructuring point of view, generally, the restructuring can run up to two years, right? And again, if there was one year of loan left and two years granted, now this person has got it for over three years to go.

Alpesh Mehta

Analyst

Okay. So again, just again, clarifying over here is almost 15% to 20% of the book can slip as per your analytics. Is that number correct now? That 10, 20 basis points of 1.37%. So it's around whatever that 7% to 15% of the book can keep based on your analytics or the customer data that you have?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

No, I don't want to venture into extrapolating for the 10, 20 basis points into various time periods.

Alpesh Mehta

Analyst

Yes, got it. Got it. Okay. The second question is related to the credit growth. Historically, we had x multiple of the system credit growth that we always used to guide about as just an indicated number. But now when I see at the system level because of the consolidation in the larger segment within the PSU band, the system may be growing at x percent, but the private sector banks are growing much faster than that. And some of our larger peers are also growing at a significantly higher rate than that of the system. How do we see our credit growth? Do you still maintain that x percentage that we used to talk about in the past or we can have better opportunities to grow much faster and gain market share? Secondly, your comments on the three specific products, one is payment products, second one is the commercial and rural banking, it is growing very fast at around almost 30% Y-o-Y. And lastly, corporate and wholesale banking, since we have developed quite a bit of capabilities over the last two years and grown this book aggressively as a share of overall loan book. So these are my questions.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

A long question, but I'll try to be short and crisp as possible. If you think about the loan growth and the market share, one thing is that our loan growth is consistent, right, consistently growing, including during the COVID period. And one has to look at it in not one quarter, two quarters, but over a longer period of time, one has to look at how we are growing rather than the one period. So, essentially looking at the consistency of growth over a longer period, for example, you can take a two-year growth, right, a longer period. And that includes the COVID period too. We've grown at 35%, right? But call it, high-teens and that kind of a growth rate for sure. And similarly, you can go back for five-year period between 2016 to '21 or something like that, again, about two plus -- that's little more than double, call it, IP type of growth. That's what we had in that time. So one has to evaluate in the current circumstances, one also has to evaluate based on an incremental basis, right, what we have grown. We believe based on an incremental basis, we have a share of more than 25% or so on an incremental basis, right, from what has happened. If you think about it, INR1,79,000 crores in the past 12 months, a INR3,25,000 crores in 24 months, right? And again, we focus on appropriate products, we touched upon the categories of commercial and rural or wholesale and retail. Yes, at some point in time, we did grow good amounts of wholesale with a good demand. We were there for the customers to support them in terms of the wholesale, very highly rated. And now we see a lot of prepayments happening, that's about seven-odd percent is what year-on-year we see in the wholesale. On the commercial and rural, enormous opportunity and very fast growing. About one-third of the country's GDP is contributed by that kind of a segment, right, that segment. And we want to participate more vehemently in that group -- in that segment, and we will continue to bounce on that one. On the retail, we were subdued, rightfully so from a policy point of view, we are back, and that is what we are seeing in the sequential growth at 4.5% or so. So net-net, I mean coming back to the same summary, which is now one quarter or two quarters doesn't establish what the growth is, it's about the consistency of growth and over a period of time. And that's how we must look at it in terms of our growth, and we will continue to capture market share. And again, in a balanced portfolio across secured, unsecured in retail, across commercial and rural and wholesale, so across various product spectrums, customer groups.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from the line of Akriti Kakkar from Goldman Sachs.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Yes, thanks. Hi, Srini. Good evening. Rahul here. A couple of questions. First one, on the asset quality bit. Just wanted to confirm, was there any new restructuring that we did in this quarter?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

No, no new restructuring, but part of that net change that I gave you INR500 crores is a plus and a minus mix of INR500 crores, which is whatever was in the pipeline that came through that was about INR500 crores or so the new payment, but was not a new granted -- application granted, whatever was in the pipeline that came. But then the paydowns and other things that happened. So net-net, it is at INR17,500 crores, 1.37%.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Understood. The second question is on the slippages and credit costs. I think Mahrukh also asked this question. On the credit cost also 95 basis points and slippages also are one of the lowest at least in the last three quarters, assuming no pandemic impact, do you think this could be a new normal over the next few quarters? And then in that context, how do you plan to build up the PCR buffer from here? Shall we continue to see more and more floating pumping in come through?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

A good question. You touched upon another aspect of what Mahrukh also touched upon. But as a bank, we don't give one particular outlook or our forecast in terms of how to look at, as I said it, but I can point you to historical to say that in the recent COVID time period, we operated 1.2%, 1.3% kind of thing. If you go to a little before the COVID period, 100 basis points to 120 basis points, somewhere there we operated, currently including the COVID -- the contingent provisions about 95 basis points. But yes, over a period of time, again, when you look at it, we should revert to that kind of what was the pre-COVID mean -- type of a mean reversion should happen towards there, right? And current quarter is reflective of what we have booked because the recent vintages, call it, the 18-month or 15, 18, 21 months type of vintages that we have booked across various segments, right, across various segments, they are of very good quality. Retail book is typically two years on an average retail book, and it was a very good quality. And our innovation lab is working on several things, including opening up new to bank, right? So that means what previously -- that we had about, call it, 80% of existing to bank, personal loan or, call it, two-thirds to 70% existing book to bank, card loans. So now our innovation lab is making progress towards using alternative data from the market to see how new to bank could be as efficiently scored and passed through the muster on the scoring models together. So yes, I wouldn't ask you to project based on the current quarter, but if you think about it from a pre-COVID non what it is and that's the kind of. So your second aspect of the question on the building of the provisions and so on, right? See, our buildup of the contingent provisions goes back several quarters and much before the onset of the COVID cases, right? So for example, if you look at June '19 or so, when we initiated the build of our contingent provisions, that was starting point of countercyclical provisions done, right? At that time, the contingent provisions were less than INR1,000 crores. Today, it's built up, it's more than INR8,500 crores, right, or about 70 basis points of gross advances or 18 basis points, including floating provision, whichever way you look at it, right? What it does is that it takes -- it makes the balance sheet much more resilient for any short uncertainty pandemic can bring. And so what does such resiliency do? It's, of course, good execution on the front line for our growth, including making several experiments in our lab as I alluded to. So that's how we should think about. We evaluate it quarter-to-quarter. There is no preplanned type of how this runs. We take it as it comes in a quarter and evaluate.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Got it. Srini, just two more questions. The other question was on the credit card or the payment product profitability. You laid out a few points why it was muted this quarter. But when you think about the structural profitability of the product and also what regulators are thinking, any thoughts as to how we should think about what are the components that would still remain remunerative while the component which could witness some pressure. You pointed about the fee waiver, the late payment fee et cetera, sort of coming down. So how should we think about more from a one- to two-year perspective?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

Good question, right. We will come to that the regulatory or any other things that will come to that. But from an overall buoyancy point of view, see the first aspect of a card is about the spend and the spend has quite picked up 24% or so year-on-year growth, right. So that is something that has happened. And the next thing as the spend goes up, the credit line utilization go up, as I said, the credit line utilization due to the spend coming down over a period of the COVID came down. Now it needs to go up, but still credit line utilization is at about 0.8 of the pre-pandemic level. So that should start to go up. And then along with that gets to the revolving and so on and so forth [Indiscernible], right? And from a fee charging point of view, it is various fees -- the penal type of fees or incentive type of fees or loan origination kind of fees, those are routine and will happen, moves on as the volumes come up, right? Any other type of fees that there can be a regulatory constraint also comes to the cost, right? So that means you need to think about not just fees it also you need to think about the cost that goes with the fee. For example, there are certain fees that goes out, there has to be a certain cost also that goes out, right? And what are the type of costs that can go out? You see that there is a balance between what you earn on the fees and what you spend on the expenses, call it the rewards, call it the cashback, call it the sales promotion, the marketing promotion. They all have some linkages across the P&L, right, from top to bottom, these are the kind of linkages. One cannot look at only one isolation as a structural change, right? There's no such structural change. But if there were to be a structural change, one has to look at it across all P&L lines in terms of what is discretionary and what supports, why, right? And then accordingly, one has to model. But from an aggregate sense, the cost profitability model should remain intact irrespective of whatever.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Last question the digital strategy. You've announced a partnership with the two entities. So can you just talk about this partnership with [Indiscernible] or the entities that you're looking about? And how does this sort of feed your digital tool strategy to acquire and retain the customers, and also from operating leverage front of view? That is the last question.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

I know this is more of a -- it is a key question and getting talked about everywhere in terms of partnerships and how we think about and the cost-income and so on and so forth. Maybe it's the time I'll take two, three minutes or so to describe, right, how we think about it, and you can see whether it fits in with what you're all thinking. In a bank, you like to look at things in three different kind of activity, call it like that, right? One is the customer acquisition, the second one is customer servicing, and third one is the relationship management. So, this is the continuum of how one engages with the customer on what sort. The various fintechs and the partnerships that we are all talking about is on the front end there on the customer acquisition side, right? We have several channels for acquisition, branch, we have a virtual relationship model, we have a feet on street model, we have a physical DSA model, right? And then, now we have a digital marketing model developed over the last three years based on analytics. And now we have a partnership model, where, call it, a fintech partnership or any other type of partnership that we think about, that is another model. And we don't get -- I gave you some time ago in terms of regarding 2.4 million liability relationship. That's a key ingredient that comes in based on which every other product starts to work on that, right? And so that is the kind of inflow of customers. So you get a little more accelerated customer acquisition. At the end of the day, you measure the effectiveness of that through the better cost of acquisition, which is the optimal cost of acquisition, that's…

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Thank you so much, Srini. We'll definitely take it offline as well.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from the line of Saurabh from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Hi, good evening Srini. Just one question. One, this is on your net interest margin. So how should we think about the progression from here? The book mix clearly seems to be getting better. And if rates rise, you clearly seem to be better positioned. So would you expect that the NIM should go up from here? And in that context, your earlier comment that the [POP] will grow in line with loan growth, shouldn't ideally this growth be better?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

Okay. Thanks for asking again a key part of the -- part of the dynamics from the P&L to think about, right. See, historically, over a period of 3 years, 5, 10, 15, right, we have seen all of those and which you have seen too. The Bank has operated in a band of, call it, 3.94% to 4.45%, right, to 4.4%, 4.5%. That's the band at which -- by the way, that is based on average assets not interest-earning assets because we don't want to get confused with -- denominator being what it is, denominator in this case that I quoted the numbers with average assets because there's process thing in the industry about using interest earning assets, but that's a different matter, I would say, 3.94% to 4.4%, 4.5%, right, that's the band at which. Currently, we are at the low end of the band because the retail product, where we see much more of yield coming, much more of a spread coming, and it comes with the higher RWA, right? So it comes with higher risk rating on those, right, as that comes there. We brought that down and it's in mid-40s, and it's starting to take its own legs and start to grow, right? So one is that it needs to take its time to grow back to what it was, call it, two years ago, right? So that's the journey. And the journey if you look at the sequential that we have seen, about 4.5%, call it, 18% or so with the growth on the retail portfolio, right? And the next part of that could also be on the retail front itself, the mix of the retail front, right, whether in the current rate scenario, what sort of loans that yield, right, it also depends…

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Got it, Srini. So ideally, it should move up, so that's what I was coming to that if your NIMs tend to move up, shouldn't your operating profit be better than loan growth is the limited point I was trying about that?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

So it's a good point that you say, right, but from from at least my point of view, my perspective I'll tell you that you need to be continuously investing, right? I mean you make those continuous investments, then that is where you get to the long term. So in a static book, what you say is right, right? If you look at it in the short term, say, don't make any other change. Just allow these two changes, change the mix from the loans and change the segment to be between retail, get a higher-yield segment and should that be, yes, it will be. But you know that it is not a unidimensional model, right? It should be a dynamic model where you invest for the future. That's why I alluded to in my opening remarks about the branch investment, about the people investment, about the technology investment. We need to do that for the future. You don't see a return on it today. You will see the return on it in a couple of years' time, right? Because the branch maturity model takes inter from two years to three years to be in a reasonable state and between 5 years to 10 years to get to be a robust state, right? There is people productivity. And so we need to make those continuous investments on those. And so, that is why the ones that I mentioned that the pre-provision operating profit or PPOP limiting kind of a lending growth rate. That's how historically we've been because continuously, we have added branches. So if you think about in the last 5 to 10 years, we've added 2,600 branches in the last 5 years to 10 years. In the last one years to three years, we've added 1,100 branches, right? And so that -- these are the kind of investments continuously we do to model so that it's dynamically maintained for a longer term to come.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from the line of Suresh Ganapathy from Macquarie. Please go ahead.

Suresh Ganapathy

Analyst

Srini, I have a question on these -- on the fees for the payments products in the sense that, are you seeing pressure on interchange fees, are the MDR levels coming down? So the reason why I'm asking this question is that as, of course, you can just tell us what has been the experience? And secondly, from a -- to the new digital payments paper, I know it's always difficult to second guess what the regulator is thinking. But you really think there can be further reduction with respect to MDRs and debit cards? Can there be something on credit cards? Can UPI be monetizable? I'm just asking all these questions because everything has got to do with the payment-related fees. So if the regulator is thinking only in one direction as to bring down the transaction cost, then this is not going to be one quarter phenomenon. You're going to be prepared for subsequent several quarters. How is the management thinking about taking care of some of the regulatory challenges here?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

And it's indeed important to address it and think about -- and say about what we think, right? But there are two aspects to this. One is we experience itself in terms of what we see on the interchange or the MDR. There has been no pressure on interchange or MDR from a rate point of view, right? It has been quite steady and quite nice. So that is something from our recent experience that has not been inhibiting our kind of a fee line. The rate is quite all right. Now when the MDRs, we'll address that because it is easy to address, we will come to interchange. See MDR, we don't make -- on a net basis, we don't make much -- we don't make anything on MDR for that matter. That means if it is an internal customer that means we have an issuing card where MDR business stays interchange to the issuing card, right? So -- and if it is a third-party card [Indiscernible] card, our MDR business case interchanged through a third-party issuer. So MDR business as such is pretty neutral, but we still very, very vehemently pursue MDR relationship or merchant relationship, 2.85 million and we continuously grow that because of the sandwich strategy, which is along with that comes a liability and comes the asset value, right, which liability, we have already started. And as such, we are working on various models since we have come to a reasonable value there. We still have to do a lot to grow there, but that's part of that strategy so that MDR as such there is nothing to take it away on MDR because it's nothing there to take it away. So that's one. Now, coming to the interchange into being held steady. If there…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Vaidyanathan for closing comments.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Analyst

Okay. Thank you, Jennifer. Thanks for all the participants for dialing in today. We appreciate your engagement. And if you do have nothing more that we could help you from your understanding, Ajit Shetty in our Investor Relations will be available to talk at some point of time in the future. Please use and stay in touch with us. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. On behalf of HDFC Bank Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.