❝We Expect Growth Of 10-15 Per cent In The Gold Loan Business❞

Bindu A L Executive Vice President and CFO, Manappuram Finance

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As CFO of Manappuram Finance, what are the top three priorities you give importance to?

The first among my top three priorities would be to ensure availability of funds at reasonable costs to improve profitability and shareholder returns. This includes appropriate diversification of the sources of funds and arriving at an optimum mix of short-term and long-term liabilities in order to achieve long-term sustainability. The second priority would be a relentless focus on improving operational efficiency, including cost optimisation and thereby improve earnings. The third priority would be compliance as well as enable the business to capture opportunities in the market, as they come.

Going forward, owing to the tough macro-economic environment, do you think provisions will continue to remain elevated at the current levels?

In our core business of gold loan, there is very low credit loss, even in case of defaults. For other businesses which account for about 30 per cent of our consolidated portfolio, we have made accelerated provisions in Q1 as per the new accounting standards’ requirements in order to meet any challenges that may arise. However, as things have been improving since then, we are confident that the provision levels would not remain elevated for long.

How are digitisation and technology influencing your company’s operations during these trying times?