Approval for Emirates NBD's capital infusion expected by Q1 FY27: RBL Bank MD

Mumbai: RBL Bank Limited expects to receive regulatory and other approvals for the capital raise from Emirates NBD by the first quarter of the next financial year, after which the bank will begin the process for ownership and management changes, its chief executive and managing director said during the bank’s bank’s Q3 earnings call on Saturday.

“Going by the queries and conversations happening between the regulator and the applicant, we feel it will take around two-three months,” R. Subramaniakumar said.

On 18 October the bank had announced that Emirates NBD would acquire a majority stake for $3 billion or ₹26,850 crore, marking the largest ever foreign direct investment and equity fundraise in the Indian banking sector. Following the investment, Emirates NBD will be designated as the promoter of the domestic bank. Shareholders approved the transaction in November 2025.

“We feel objectively, based on whatever has been the communication, maybe in Q1 we will be able to see all the approvals in place and the rest of the process to follow,” Subramaniakumar said. When the deal was announced in October 2025, Subramaniakumar had said the bank expected to receive the approvals in 5-6 months.

Meanwhile, the bank’s priority is to build granular liabilities with lower cost of deposits, achieve a more balanced retail asset mix through faster growth of secured loans, strengthen branch-led customer acquisition and deposit mobilisation, deepen relationships and product penetration across the existing customer base, and improve operational efficiency for more predictable profitability trends, he said.

“We have already laid out the strategy for the growth of the bank, both on the asset side and the liabilities side,” he said, adding that the bank was looking to expand the number of branches, and increase focus on segments such as SME banking, wealth management and the NRI business.

Mumbai: RBL Bank Limited expects to receive regulatory and other approvals for the capital raise from Emirates NBD by the first quarter of the next financial year, after which the bank will begin the process for ownership and management changes, its chief executive and managing director said during the bank’s bank’s Q3 earnings call on Saturday.

“Going by the queries and conversations happening between the regulator and the applicant, we feel it will take around two-three months,” R. Subramaniakumar said.

On 18 October the bank had announced that Emirates NBD would acquire a majority stake for $3 billion or ₹26,850 crore, marking the largest ever foreign direct investment and equity fundraise in the Indian banking sector. Following the investment, Emirates NBD will be designated as the promoter of the domestic bank. Shareholders approved the transaction in November 2025.

“We feel objectively, based on whatever has been the communication, maybe in Q1 we will be able to see all the approvals in place and the rest of the process to follow,” Subramaniakumar said. When the deal was announced in October 2025, Subramaniakumar had said the bank expected to receive the approvals in 5-6 months.

Meanwhile, the bank’s priority is to build granular liabilities with lower cost of deposits, achieve a more balanced retail asset mix through faster growth of secured loans, strengthen branch-led customer acquisition and deposit mobilisation, deepen relationships and product penetration across the existing customer base, and improve operational efficiency for more predictable profitability trends, he said.

“We have already laid out the strategy for the growth of the bank, both on the asset side and the liabilities side,” he said, adding that the bank was looking to expand the number of branches, and increase focus on segments such as SME banking, wealth management and the NRI business.

RBL Bank Q3 results

The bank reported a net profit of ₹214 crore for the period, which was impacted by one-off pre-tax expenses of ₹32 crore. These expenses were incurred due to the revision in the definition of wages under the new labour codes, which took effect from 21 November, 2025.

Net interest income (NII) rose 5% year-on-year (YoY) and 7% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) to ₹1,657 crore, supported by a healthy net interest margin of 4.63%.

Other income, excluding the one-off gain from the sale of a strategic equity investment in Q3 FY25, increased 13% both year-on-year and sequentially to ₹1,050 crore. Core fee income also remained robust, growing 10% YoY and 3% QoQ to ₹959 crore.

Asset quality and deposits growth

RBL Bank reported a sequential improvement in asset quality, with net NPAs easing to ₹567 crore in the December quarter from ₹572.4 crore in the preceding quarter. The net NPA ratio also inched down to 0.55% from 0.57%.

Gross NPAs declined as well, falling to ₹1,961.5 crore from ₹2,377.6 crore in the previous quarter, while the gross NPA ratio narrowed to 1.88% from 2.32% sequentially.

Net advances grew 14% on year and 3% on quarter to ₹1.0 trillion, of which retail advances grew 10% YoY and 1% QoQ to ₹60,611 crore. The retail and wholesale mix was 59:41.

Secured retail advances grew 24% on year and 1% sequentially, with head of strategy Jaideep Iyer saying that the retail secured businesses, as a cohort, has now turned profitable at the operating level and the performance is expected to improve as the bank builds scale.

“The run rate of growth of the secured retail will be much faster in the range of 30-35% going ahead, while the unsecured part will grow at maybe in “lower teens” because that is something which has been established over a period of time,” Subramaniakumar said, adding that the bank aims to bring down the share of unsecured loans from last year’s peak of 34% and 26% currently to around 25%.

Credit cards shine

Growth in unsecured loans reversed its trend and rose 1% sequentially, led by growth in the bank’s credit card portfolio after 6-7 quarters of de-growth. Subramaniakumar said credit card slippages remain slightly elevated and the bank expects it will take another 2-3 quarters for delinquency rates to normalise.

“The macro environment (for credit cards) remains somewhat challenged, and we have parts of our portfolio which do seem to be under stress. We are seeing some delays in the way in which those resolutions are happening,” Iyer said, adding that while the bank doesn’t expect material improvement in the portfolio asset quality for 2-3 quarters, the incremental or newer sourced portfolio with a tenure of 6-18 months is behaving well.

“The leading indicators are extremely encouraging, and we are comfortable with how the portfolio is behaving on that front. The older portfolio, which has some challenges is taking a little bit more time to resolve itself as compared to our earlier thoughts. And that's why we are being cautious here,” he said.

Subramaniakumar said the bank would maintain the current sourcing rate of 1 lakh cards per month, which will allow the portfolio to grow at around 10-15%.