HDFC Bank Limited (HDB) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2022

April 16, 2022 7:30 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to HDFC Bank Limited Q4 FY22 Earnings Conference Call on the financial results presented by the management of HDFC Bank. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded.

I now hand the conference over to Mr. Srinivasan Vaidyanathan, Chief Financial Officer, HDFC Bank. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan

Okay. Thank you, Rutuja. Good evening and a warm welcome to all the participants. Let's start by the COVID current state business dimension as we start. The saga as it permits, we can say is hopefully behind us, at least for now. We cannot forget the deeds of the people who dedicated their lives in the service of the bank during the year and thousands of others who single-mindedly were in the service of the customer through all this.

Same time last year, we were in unimaginable crisis. Most if not all of the restrictions are behind. Thanks to our team and, equally important, thanks to you all for being with us through this to get us here.

Let's start with providing the context on the environment and policies during the quarter which are manifesting signs of speedy recovery. We'll jump over this basic details of GST collections, PMI, et cetera, et cetera, that shows growth of ₹10 crores.

Around the mid-part of the current quarter -- the recent quarter, geopolitical tensions raised across the world, which have given raise to global uncertainties. This has impacted the global economies profoundly, which is evident from the surge in crude oil price, major commodity prices and then further global supply chain disruptions from recent period.

CPI inflation is on the rising trend due to higher put crude oil and LPG prices. The RBI kept its monetary stance unchanged. However, it is expected that this accommodative stance shall be fixed to a neutral stance in the next MPC. We also saw the introduction of SBS and the RBI reverting to a pre-pandemic policy corridor of 50 basis points, with a lower bound SBF and the upper bound MSF. We are confident that the policy measures are supportive and at this time provides us impetus for continued growth.

Let's go through 4 key themes at a high level. First thing is about the investment in capital, investment in human capital, branches aided with the best-in-class technology. During the quarter, we added 7,167 people. For the year, we added 21,486 people, which is an all-time high, to get the people added on the productivity curve as the economy accelerates.