IDFC First Bank does not plan to raise deposit rates in the near term after meaningfully cutting them across all buckets last quarter, MD and CEO V Vaidyanathan said in an interview with Saloni Shukla. He added that stress in the microfinance book is now under control, with the bank having put in place several guardrails around the number of loans a borrower can hold concurrently.

Could you share the reasons for the tepid PAT growth?

The representative core profit for this quarter is ₹746 crore, which is 145% over the corresponding period of last year. But we took the impact of the fraud at our Chandigarh branch this quarter itself. There were certain one-time income tax refunds, so we reduced them from normal profits. Our provisions came down because the JLG or MFI portfolio collections normalised to pre-crisis levels of over 99.5%.

Has the Chandigarh episode been fully accounted for?
Yes, fully accounted for. The recovery process is on. Investigations and court processes are involved. We are working on it.

Do you believe the current level of NIM is sustainable? What would be your target range for FY27?

Our net interest margin was about 10 bps lower than shown due to fewer days in Q4FY26, so it is 5.83 bps only and not 5.93 bps. In FY27, we expect our NIM to be stable around the FY17 level of about 5.75%. We are also moving toward low-yield, low-credit-cost segments as a bank.
Loan growth has been strong. What will be the key growth drivers?
In the last year, our growth mainly came from mortgage loans, vehicle loans, consumer loans, wholesale loans and business banking. Together, these segments contributed 87% of the incremental growth last year. Going forward, we will also need to grow our rural banking business because we are short of priority sector loans. Because we are an infrastructure wholesale DFI bank, we have been short on many subcategories of priority sector loans since our origin. So, we need to grow the rural and PSL book. Also, we are a relatively small player in the Indian system, we can grow 19-20%, but we don’t want to play pre-determined shots.Deposit growth has also been robust. What will be your strategy to sustain this momentum?
For us, we build ourselves as an institution that lives into eternity. Secondly, we tell our employees that every product we make we design ethics into the product construct. We also focus on use of tech. Over time, people will hopefully experience these things with our bank, and this may help. Also, we are trying to make a good app with in-house skills. We will go more app than the branch route, branches are not the future.

Given the competition for deposits in the system, do you anticipate raising rates?
We just reduced rates meaningfully across all buckets last quarter, so we don’t intend to increase them anytime soon, except for some marginal tinkering if required.

Earnings from India’s bellwether software services exporters have reinforced investor concerns about the sector’s growth prospects, signaling that the downturn in their stocks has further to run.

Infosys Ltd., the second-largest outsourcer, forecast annual sales growth below analysts’ estimates on Thursday, following a profit miss at smaller rival HCL Technologies Ltd. two days earlier. Both stocks declined, with the latter hit by at least half a dozen analyst downgrades. A gauge of the sector plunged more than 5% on Friday to close at its lowest level since June 2023.

The market reaction underscores the two-pronged challenge being faced by India’s $315 billion tech industry — a weak global macroeconomic environment amid the Iran war that has weighed on discretionary tech spending, and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, which is threatening to disrupt their business models.

The selloff in stocks has deepened since Tata Consultancy Services kicked off earnings on April 9, with nearly $115 billion now wiped off the value of the IT gauge over four months. That has also acted as a key drag on India’s broader market given that tech shares carry a weightage of about 10% in the benchmark NSE Nifty 50 Index.

“We continue to be cautious on the sector,” Surendra Goyal, an analyst at Citigroup Inc., wrote in a note, citing high competitive intensity and continued impact of AI on existing business.

Given the fears of AI-driven disruption, a crucial metric for investors is how effectively India’s IT outsourcers adapt — both in how quickly they embed AI into their own delivery models and how successfully they reposition themselves in the value chain.
Infosys has sought to capitalize on the rapid progress of AI by embedding the technology into its offerings in a bid to curb costs and convince corporations to maintain or enhance their IT budgets. Larger rival TCS has partnered with OpenAI to build AI data centers in India, and now its nearing more such deals with other tech giants.The companies rose to prominence in the late 1990s by helping Western firms solve the Y2K bug, which had threatened computer chaos at the turn of the millennium. Since then, they have survived fluctuations in global growth from a series of crises, as well as the dawns of new technologies from mobile telecommunications to cloud computing.

For some market watchers, the monthslong selloff has made valuations attractive. The IT gauge is trading at less than 17 times its one-year forward earnings, down from 30 at the start of last year. The benchmark Nifty 50 trades at more than 18 times.

“This is a sector with no price froth, little valuation excess, and a weak business cycle already reflected in prices,” said Sahil Kapoor, a strategist at DSP Mutual Fund. “At current prices, terminal-value risk appears limited, and we remain overweight.”

Still, the decline in share prices following the latest earnings shows investors want to see more concrete results before turning positive. The NSE Nifty IT Index is now down almost 25% in 2026, making it the worst-performing sector gauge in India. It is trailing the Nifty 50 for a second year.

“Discretionary and non-AI technology spending is under pressure, as clients are delaying large, multi-year projects due to economic uncertainty and unclear returns from AI,” said Anurag Rana, senior technology analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “Companies lack visibility beyond a single quarter, with CFOs unable to provide clear medium-term guidance amid ongoing uncertainty.”

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MUMBAI: The Indian rupee is poised to weaken further on Monday and through the coming week, after holding within a relatively stronger 92.50–93.50 range over the past fortnight.

Persistent dollar demand, a swelling oil import bill and steady foreign portfolio outflows continue to weigh on the currency despite RBI’s efforts to curb speculative activity and limit market participation by oil companies.

The rupee is expected to open with a gap on Monday at 94.40-94.50, weaker from its previous close of 94.25/$.

“Over the past few days, we see RBI tolerating weaker levels. On Friday, it intervened at 94.30/$; before that we saw intervention at 94.15/$. And I expect this tolerance for weaker levels to increase, as sentiments are negative amid prolonged peace talks,” said Anil Bhansali, head of treasury, Finrex Treasury Advisors.

He expects the rupee to open at 94.35, and trade within a range of 94 to 94.50 on Monday, with RBI likely stepping in at 94.50/$.

Traders expect crude oil prices to climb back above the $100-a-barrel mark, after briefly dipping below that level on Friday. The decline, seen around 4pm IST, was driven by market speculation that Iran’s foreign minister was expected to arrive in Islamabad with a small delegation for potential peace talks with the US.
However, with no such development materialising, market participants now expect geopolitical risk premiums to add pressure on oil prices.“Peace talks aren’t happening and there are conflicting comments between Iran and the US. This creates uncertainty, and hence, I expect the crude price — which was briefly below $100 per barrel — to again increase. This should cause the rupee to open weaker at around 94.40/$ levels,” said Ritesh Bhansali, deputy CEO, Mecklai Financial Services.