Kolkata: The microfinance market contracted to ₹3.22 lakh crore at the end of December 2025, reflecting a 6% quarter-on-quarter and 16% year-on-year drop, despite showing improved loan recovery and signs of business normalisation by large lenders, showed quarterly data from credit bureau Equifax. This is the lowest level seen in the past three years.
The sharp decline in the third quarter of this financial year resulted from a bulk reclassification of micro loans as retail loans by one of the private sector banks with significant microfinance exposure, said three people aware of the matter.
The gross loan portfolio stood at ₹3.42 lakh crore at the end of September last year. At the end of November, it was ₹3.40 lakh crore.
Besides, the cumulative loan disbursement is yet to offset the size of loan rundown, said industry executives. The strategy of acceleration in writing off bad loans was another reason behind the yearly decline of loan portfolio at the aggregate level, even as some large non-banking financial company-micro finance institutions (NBFC-MFIs) showed higher loan disbursement and annual growth in the portfolio after the end of the third quarter.
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“At the sectoral level, the book run-down, including loan write-offs is still higher than total loan disbursement, which is the reason behind the contraction in the overall microfinance market,” Sanjay Garyali, managing director at Fusion Finance, told ET.
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Bandhan Bank, for instance, sold bad loans worth ₹3,212 crore to asset reconstruction companies. Of those, micro loans accounted for ₹2,800 crore.
Agencies
Microfin market sees 16% YoY drop in Q3; Loan reclassification as retail hits numbers
The microfinance market peaked at ₹4.43 lakh crore in the quarter to March 2024. Thereafter, there has been a steady fall every quarter as lenders across the spectrum slowed lending to the bottom of the pyramid borrower segment which was largely overleveraged and witnessing a surge in defaults. The industry experienced a year-on-year contraction in disbursement in 2025, with volume declining 34% and value decreasing 24%, according to an Equifax report.
The number of active loans declined 9% quarter-on-quarter and 23% year-on-year to 107.4 million, the data showed.
The lenders are also shifting their focus on providing gold jewellery-backed loans instead of collateral-free loans to the same customer segment, leading to the fall in micro loan disbursement year-on-year, said Subhankar Mishra, head of strategy at Equifax India.
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The December quarter, however, saw a modest increase in disbursements to Rs 61,000 crore from Rs 56,535 crore in the preceding quarter, signalling business normalisation, as per industry level data collated by Crif High Mark data. The gross loan portfolio declined to Rs 3.21 lakh crore at the end of December from Rs 3.46 lakh crore three months prior, said people aware of the matter. Crif High Mark did not respond to ET’s queries seeking details.
Small finance banks such as ESAF, Equitas, Jana and Ujjivan reported quarter-on-quarter growth in their respective micro loan asset portfolios at the end of December.
CreditAccess Grameen, India’s largest NBFC-MFI, also reported a quarter-on-quarter increase in gross loan portfolio. The signs of business normalisation led to recovery of share prices for several microfinance lenders over the past few weeks.
Bandhan Bank shares surged 17% in the past one month to Rs 168.25 apiece on BSE. Shares of Fusion Finance jumped 17.4% to Rs 194 each, while Satin Creditcare Network saw a 5% increase in share price to Rs 155.10 each during this period.
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Spandana Sphoorty Financial, which cut net loss to Rs 93 crore in the December quarter from Rs 249 crore in the preceding three-month period, saw a 9% increase in share prices in a month to Rs 264.5 apiece.
At the end of 2025, NBFC-MFIs controlled 40.9% of the market, followed by private banks (25.6%), small finance banks (16.9%) and other NBFCs (14%). The balance 2.6% was with notfor-profit entities.
Former City of Joondalup mayor Albert Jacob will oversee the City of Nedlands, the second time the Local Government Inspector appointed a monitor this year.
The dollar weakens as soft U.S. retail data fuels expectations for interest rate cuts by the Fed.
While a second consecutive hold in March remains the highest probability, odds of a cut in March rise to 20% from 17% yesterday on the CME FedWatch. December retail sales were flat, undershooting forecast of a 0.4% increase.
Treasury yields fall, adding downward pressure on the currency. The WSJ Dollar Index falls 0.2%, as the greenback weakens 1% against the yen. The dollar is flat versus the euro and the Swiss franc.
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Former U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah Brett Tolman discusses Big Tech in court over claims social media is addictive on ‘The Bottom Line.’
Instagram chief Adam Mosseri on Wednesday pushed back on claims the platform is dangerously addictive, reportedly telling jurors in a high-profile Los Angeles trial that using the app is more comparable to binge-watching Netflix than suffering from clinical addiction.
Mosseri, who has led Instagram since 2018, drew a distinction between clinical addiction and what he described as “problematic use,” the New York Post reported.
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“I think it’s important to differentiate between clinical addiction and problematic use,” Mosseri said. “I’m sure I said that I’ve been addicted to a Netflix show when I binged it really late one night, but I don’t think it’s the same thing as clinical addiction.”
Mosseri testified as part of a lawsuit brought by a California woman who said she began using Instagram at age 9 and later struggled with depression and body dysmorphia.
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri reportedly compared platform use to binge-watching Netflix in court. (Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
She is suing Meta and Google’s YouTube, alleging the companies knowingly hooked young users despite being aware of potential mental health risks, Reuters reported.
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to take the stand in the coming weeks.
The case is widely viewed as a test of federal legal protections that shield social media companies from liability over user-generated content. The outcome could influence hundreds of similar lawsuits across the country, according to Reuters.
Mosseri was also grilled about Instagram’s beauty filters and whether they promote unrealistic appearance standards, the New York Post reported.
“I’m sure I said that I’ve been addicted to a Netflix show when I binged it really late one night,” Mosseri said, “but I don’t think it’s the same thing as clinical addiction.” (Mona Edwards/Reuters / Reuters)
“There’s always a trade-off between safety and speech,” Mosseri said. “We’re trying to be as safe as possible and censor as little as possible.”
Emails from 2019 presented in court show debate over whether to lift a ban on filters that mimic plastic surgery. Instagram’s policy, communications and well-being teams supported keeping the ban in place, Reuters reported.
Mosseri and Zuckerberg supported restoring the filters but removing them from recommendations, an option described internally as posing a “notable well-being risk” while limiting the impact on growth, according to Reuters.
The case is widely viewed as a test of protections shielding social media companies from user-generated content-related lawsuits. (Jens Büttner/picture alliance via Getty Images / Getty Images)
“I was trying to balance all the different considerations,” Mosseri said.
Meta has said the central question in the case is whether Instagram was a substantial factor in the plaintiff’s mental health struggles.
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Temple & Webster Group Ltd (TPLWF) Q2 2026 Earnings Call February 11, 2026 6:00 PM EST
Company Participants
Mark Coulter – Co-Founder, CEO, MD & Director Cameron Barnsley – Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
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Owen Humphries – Canaccord Genuity Corp., Research Division John Campbell – Jefferies LLC, Research Division James Wilson – Macquarie Research Chamithri Ratnapala – Bell Potter Securities Limited, Research Division James Leigh – Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Research Division Wei-Weng Chen – RBC Capital Markets, Research Division Sam Teeger – Citigroup Inc., Research Division Evan Karatzas – UBS Investment Bank, Research Division James Bales – Morgan Stanley, Research Division
Presentation
Operator
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Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Temple & Webster Group Limited First Half Fiscal Year ’26 Results Call. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mark Coulter. Please go ahead.
Mark Coulter Co-Founder, CEO, MD & Director
Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I’d like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners and custodians of country throughout Australia. On the call with me today is our CFO, Cam Barnsley, and we’ll be taking you through Temple & Webster’s results for the first half of FY ’26, which were released to the ASX earlier today.
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So starting with Slide 4. You can see that we delivered a strong result in the first half of FY ’26 as we continue to execute on our strategy to reach $1 billion in revenue by FY ’28. Revenue growth accelerated since our last trading update, ending the half up 20% year-on-year to $376 million. That acceleration was partly due to the natural volatility inherent in our business and partly due to our planned promotional calendar for the remainder of the year. This growth has expanded our market share to an all-time high of 2.9%.
John Campbell Vice President of Investor Relations
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in Porch Group’s Fourth Quarter 2025 Conference Call. Today, we issued our earnings release and filed our related Form 8-K with the SEC. The press release can be found on our Investor Relations website at ir.porchgroup.com. I would like to take a moment to review the company’s safe harbor statement within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which provides important cautions regarding forward-looking statements.
Today’s discussion, including responses to your questions, reflect management’s views as of today, February 11, 2026. We do not undertake any obligations to update or revise this information. Additionally, we will make forward-looking statements about our future financial or business performance or conditions, business strategy and plans. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause our actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Please refer to the information on this slide and in our SEC filings for important disclaimers.
We will reference both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures on today’s call. Please refer to today’s press release and these slides, both available on our website for reconciliations for non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures discussed
