Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: And thank you all for joining us. Welcome to BRAC Bank PLC's Earning Disclosure for Q3 of 2026, being broadcast today through our online platform, Facebook, and other channels. Before I take you through our financial performance, let me begin with three significant achievements that make this a particularly proud moment for BRAC Bank. First, BRAC Bank has earned a place among Forbes top 500 performing banks in the world. This is a significant global recognition. Being featured among the world's top performing banks reflects the strength of our financial fundamentals, business performance, and institutional resilience. What makes this recognition particularly meaningful is that it places a Bangladeshi bank alongside leading banking institutions globally. It is a confirmation of the collective effort of our colleagues, the trust of our customers, and the confidence of our stakeholders.
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: Second, for the first time in our history, BRAC Bank's customer deposit have crossed the BDT 1 trillion milestone. This is a landmark achievement attained by only a handful of banks in Bangladesh. More importantly, it reflects the growing confidence of our customers in BRAC Bank, the strength of our franchise, and our ability to mobilize deposit across different customer segments. We see this as not just a balance sheet milestone, but as a profound expression of trust. Third, Bonik Barta, one of Bangladesh's leading financial dailies, has ranked BRAC Bank number 1 in banking industry for the second consecutive year, based on its internationally accepted assessment criteria and evaluation of key financial and operational parameters. Being recognized as the country's leading bank for two consecutive years is particularly encouraging.
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: It reinforces our commitment to sustainable growth, strong financial performance, and responsible banking. These three achievements represent different dimensions of our progress: global recognition, customer confidence, and domestic industry leadership. I would like to acknowledge our board, our customers, regulators, stakeholders, and above all, our 14,000 plus colleagues whose collective efforts have made this milestone possible. Now, let me turn to our financial performance for the first nine months of 2026. We have delivered a solid nine-month performance with a strong growth in profitability and continued improvement in our financial fundamentals. Our standalone profit after tax grew by 50% year-on-year to BDT 1,584 crore, with a return on equity of 18.72%. On a consolidated basis, profit after tax increased by 38% to BDT 2,121 crore, delivering an ROE of 20.28%.
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: Alongside this strong profitability, our balance sheet growth remained broad-based, asset quality remained stable, and our capital and liquidity position strengthened further. Can you go to the second slide, please? Let me start with the operating environment here, because it frames everything else. Food inflation pushed Bangladesh's overall inflation up to 8.34% in September 2026, and recent fuel hike will likely keep near-term cost pressure elevated. In response, Bangladesh Bank, our central bank, has cut the policy rate in July 2026 to 9.5% and kept it steady in its latest monetary policy statement to manage inflation cautiously. On the external front, remittance inflows reached to $35.6 billion in 2026, supporting foreign exchange reserve of $32.9 billion.
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: To finance its deficit and curb domestic banking sector borrowing, Bangladesh plans to debut its first $1 billion sovereign bond by December 2026, while pursuing 13.27 billion in foreign loans and specialized bonds. Taking all this together, while adjustment continues, we manage this bank to perform across a range of scenarios. Our results this quarter reflects that kind of discipline. With this note, let me turn it over to our Head of SME Banking, Mr. Syed Abdul Momen. Syed Abdul Momen, over to you.
Syed Abdul Momen: Thank you, Tarique bhai. Good evening, everyone. I am pleased to share the performance of SME banking for the Q3 of 2026. It has been a challenging operating environment with inflation above 8%, the policy rate of 9.5, and very slow economic growth. Small businesses have felt that pressure too. Against this backdrop, our SME business delivered a strong deposit growth, steady lending growth, and a clear improvement in asset quality. Our SME deposit portfolio have reached BDT 21,637 crore, which is up by 20% year-on-year. The quality of these deposits have also increased. Our CASA mix rose to 45%, which is up by 4.2 percentage points year-on-year. Our cost of deposits have also fell down to 4.85%, which is a 75 basis point reduction year-on-year.
Syed Abdul Momen: This reflects the trust of our SME customers on us in running their day-to-day businesses. Our SME loan portfolio, on the other hand, stands at BDT 37,133 crore, which is up by 13% year-on-year. We grew while improving our asset quality. Our SME NPL ratio came down to 1.49%, an improvement of 131 basis points from last year. Portfolio at Risk fell to 1.78%, which is down by 125 basis points. This is the result of close customer relationships, disciplined underwriting, and active portfolio monitoring. At the same time, our yield has also improved to 13.05%, which is up by 34 basis points. SME trade volumes were softer this quarter, mainly due to lower export volumes as global demand slowed down, while import volumes remain stable at $128 million.
Syed Abdul Momen: We continue to work closely with our trade customers and expect actively to pick up this condition in coming days. We have restructured our medium business segment to serve those customers better. Medium enterprises have needs that sit down between small business and corporate banking. They need larger working capital and term financing, trade services, and cash management. We now serve them through a dedicated relationship model with specialized teams and more tailored product and service offerings. With this new structure in place, we expect to grow our medium business assets, deposits, and trade volumes significantly in coming quarters, while maintaining the same discipline on asset quality, which has served our SME portfolio well.
Syed Abdul Momen: To summarize, we grew deposits at a lower cost, expanded our loan book while strengthening its quality, and improved returns. These results belong to our SME customers who keep their businesses running through these difficult times, and to our colleagues across the country who serve them every day. I thank them both. Looking ahead, our ambition is to be the preferred banking partner for both small and medium businesses in Bangladesh. That means going beyond lending to offer value-added services that help our customers run and grow their business: digital banking and cash management, trade and supply chain solutions, payment and collection services, and advisory support. We will keep investing in these capabilities so that at every stage of their growth, our customers find us a partner they can rely on. Thank you very much. Over to you, Tarique bhai.
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: Thanks, our Head of SME, for a brief presentation. Growth and asset quality moving in the same direction, in particular in our SME. The SME story delivering around 20% deposit growth alongside an NPL reduction down to 1.49% proves that the enduring strength of our core franchises. The key management priority is to sustain this growth momentum while preserving asset quality and funding efficiency, with particularly focus on reviving export-led trade businesses. Now, I would like to call upon our Head of Wholesale Banking, Mr. Shaheen Iqbal, to present wholesale banking updates.
Shaheen Iqbal: Thank you, Tarique bhai. Good evening, everyone. For wholesale banking, Q3 2026 was defined by strategic prudence in a challenging macroeconomic environment. We believe these disciplined positions as well for stronger quarters ahead. On deposits, our priority has been the quality of funding, not volume alone. A focused drive on low-cost deposits has delivered results. Our CASA mix has improved to 59% from 54% year-on-year. Our cost of deposit declined by 57 basis points year-on-year. This has helped us to improve our margins and funding profile. On loans and advances, credit demand across the industry remains subdued, as you have heard earlier. Even so, our asset portfolio grew by 19% year-on-year. Trade has been a real success story for us.
Shaheen Iqbal: Strong presence in trade-based transactions across the public and private sectors delivered record growth in non-funded exposure. Import volume has grown by 43%, and total trade volume has increased by 37% year-on-year. Recently, we launched state-of-the-art end-to-end digital trade solution with focused trade onboarding, clients, and innovative digital solutions. We are on our way to becoming the largest trade bank by 2028. On asset quality, we are having some challenges. Our portfolio at risk increased to 7.53%. This increase is attributable solely to a single large exposure. Our NPL ratio has come down to 3.26% year-on-year, a good improvement. Capitalizing on our strength, our OBU balance sheet has continued to grow at a modest pace of 24% year-on-year, reaching $933 million.
Shaheen Iqbal: Our remittance business now ranked number three in the country, with volume growing by 64% year-on-year to over $2.5 billion in this year. In summary, this quarter has delivered lower cost of funding, strong growth in trade, and disciplined management of risk. Our ambition to becoming the most preferred wholesale banking partner continues by offering innovative solutions for both public and private sector clients, and to becoming the most impactful bank in Bangladesh. Thank you, everyone. Back to Tarique bhai.
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: Thank you, Shahin Iqbal. We choose quality over volume under this macroeconomic environment. Total trade volume expanding by 36% to $7.12 billion, and revenues growing around 64%, showing that the deep corporate trust we continue to command. Our immediate management priorities are, for this segment, very clear: contain the deterioration in asset quality, strengthen recovery and PAR management, and maintain disciplined trade growth. At the same time, we must protect our stronger CASA mix, optimize funding costs, and improve our asset yields. The focus is on translating business volume momentum into sustainable, risk-adjusted profitability. Now I would like to call upon our Head of Retail Banking, Mr. Mahiul Islam, to present our retail banking updates.
Mahiul Islam: Good evening. Retail banking delivered a strong performance in the first nine months of 2026. We grew our deposits and lending, improved funding costs and asset yields, and reduced our non-performing loan ratio. Together, these results give us a stronger foundation for sustainable growth. Our deposits portfolio has grown 36% year-on-year and now stands at BDT 54,471 crore, which is largest among the three business segments. Alongside this growth, our CASA mix improved and now stands at 33%, while our cost of deposits declined by 33 basis points year-on-year to reach 6.16%. For the business, this means a larger funding base at a lower cost, supporting our capacity to lend. On the asset side, our portfolio grew 22% year-on-year to reach BDT 14,401 crore.
Mahiul Islam: Our yield also improved to 11.77%, up by 109 basis points year-on-year. We continue to hold the largest consumer finance portfolio in the industry and sustainably grow at the targeted customer segments in line with our risk appetite. We have also maintained a clear focus on asset quality as we grow. Our NPL ratio declined to 2.49%, improving by 73 basis points year-on-year. In cards, growth continues across the board. Our credit card portfolio reached BDT 1,818 crore, up by 17% year-on-year. During the same period, credit card spends grew 25% to reach BDT 4,400 plus crore, and our debit card spends also grew 25% to reach BDT 2,700 crore plus. In summary, it has been a strong and balanced Q3 of this year for retail banking.
Mahiul Islam: Based on these results, we are well-positioned to finish this year strongly. That is all from my side. Thank you.
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: Thank you, Mahim. Deposit passed BDT 54,000 crore. That's a wonderful achievement. Scale is compounding clearly here, driven by 36% deposit growth and solid card spend momentum. Key management priorities for this sector are to sustain deposit momentum, accelerate quality asset growth, address the recent uptick in PAR, and capitalize on strong card uses to drive deeper customer engagement and fee-based revenue. To discuss how our branch network supports our customers, I should invite our head of distribution network, Mr. Sheikh Mohammad Ashfaque.
Sheikh Mohammad Ashfaque: Thank you, Tarique bhai. Good evening, everyone. I'm pleased to share the key highlights of our distribution network performance for the first nine months of 2026. Our distribution network continues to play a critical role in Brac Bank's growth journey. Our strategy remains focused on three fundamental priorities: relationship banking, service excellence, and strong compliance governance. Let me begin with our deposit performance. During the first nine months of 2026, our distribution network delivered BDT 14,469 crore in net deposit growth. What is particularly encouraging is the quality of this growth. Of the total deposit growth, BDT 7,500 crore came from CASA, representing approx 52% of our incremental deposits. This is an important achievement because our objective is not simply to mobilize more deposits, but to build a sustainable, cost-efficient funding base.
Sheikh Mohammad Ashfaque: CASA growth remains one of our highest priorities, and we are increasingly focusing on transactional deposits, salary banking, and deeper customer relationships. Our ambition is to make Brac Bank the primary banking partner for our customers rather than simply another bank where they maintain an account. Moving to our asset business, the distribution network disbursed BDT 2,300 crore during the first nine months, representing 27% year-on-year growth. This reflects our continuous focus on expanding retail lending through our branch network. Coming to credit card business, our credit card business also maintained positive momentum with 16,000 cards issued, representing 44% year-on-year growth. Let me now turn to customer experience, which is equally important in our long-term strategy. During the first nine months, our distribution network delivered 10.79 million customer services, representing approx 62,000 interactions every day.
Sheikh Mohammad Ashfaque: These numbers demonstrate the scale of our physical distribution network and the trust customers continues to place in Brac Bank. But our objective goes beyond handling transactions. We want to gradually transform our branches from transaction processing centers into relationship-building centers by encouraging greater adoption of digital banking and self-service channels. Another encouraging achievement is that we have established 240,000 new customer relationships during the first nine months. To summarize, I would highlight three key achievements from our distribution network. First, strong deposit mobilization. Second, continued momentum in asset business. And third, deeper customer engagement. Looking ahead, our priorities remain clear: increase CASA growth, deepen customer relationship, quality retail lending, and transforming our branches into more relationship banking centers.
Sheikh Mohammad Ashfaque: We believe these priorities will enable our distribution network to make an even stronger contribution to Brac Bank's sustainable growth. That's all from my side. Thank you, Tarique bhai.
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: Thank you, Asif. With net deposit reaching to BDT 14,469 crore year-on-year date and CASA mix of 52%, our distribution network continues to deliver through service excellence and relationship-driven banking. Moving forward, we will focus on deepening customer relationship, accelerating quality asset growth, strengthening digital adoption, and improving service productivity while upholding the highest standards of compliance and customer services. I am pleased to invite now our CFO, Chief Risk Officer, Mr. Ahmed Rashid Joy, to brief you on risk management and sustainable finance update.
Ahmed Rashid Joy: Thank you, Tarique bhai. Good evening, everyone. Let me walk you through our credit risk. Notice on the left chart of the slide, our overall stress portfolio has continued its multi-year downward trajectory. You can notice that. in 2021, our stress portfolio was 8.20%. Today, it is 3.11%. That is almost a five-point decline. However, if we compare this year's, there is a modest uptick by 16 basis points from 2.95% to 3.11%, which comes entirely from performing rescheduled loans. These are the customer we choose to support early before problems could turn into defaults. Just to mention, 0.46% of the portfolio is related to reschedule under BB policy support for large borrowers. Our non-performing loans remain stable at 2.27%, completely unchanged from the position of December 2025. So no deteriorations.
Ahmed Rashid Joy: Now, requesting you to look at the chart on the right side. Coverage remains robust at 134% in Q3 2026, virtually identical to the 133% we ended 2025 with, and well above the levels we have maintained through most of the post-pandemic credit cycle. Credit cost has moved up to 0.98% from 0.91% in 2025. We have observed that banks in the emerging markets have credit cost in the range between 0.50% to 1.5%. So, we are very much within that band. Given the macroeconomic environment, we have consciously chosen to keep the cost of credit higher as a buffer against any uncertainty in the operating environment rather than to react.
Ahmed Rashid Joy: At the bottom part of the slide, three numbers I want you to take away. Net NPL, which is NPL netting of provision, is 0.6%, so very little unprotected risk. NPL slippage is 0.16%, showing very few loans tipping into NPL compared with Q3 of 2025. Economic cost of risk, which is basically the return of ratio, is 0.46%. The true underlying cost of risk is less than half of the headline credit cost figure that I mentioned above. To summarize this slide, let me tell you that our asset quality is stable, new slippage is low, our coverage is strong, and our risk discipline is proactive. Next slide, please, Dev. On the ESG and sustainable finance, first, our green finance portfolio stood at around 10% of our total term loan portfolio.
Ahmed Rashid Joy: More broadly, our sustainable finance portfolio reached to 63% of our total book, and that is according to the definition of the central bank. One of our most significant milestone has been its first green bond from the banking industry. We developed the framework in alignment with the ICMA Green Bond Principles and obtained an independent second-party opinion from S&P Global Ratings. Importantly, what they mentioned, the assessment identified no material weaknesses in the framework. The proceeds of this bond will support the conventional three areas, as you know, renewable energy, green building, and energy-efficient machinery. So basically, through this initiative, we are creating an additional revenue to mobilize capital for the green investment in our country.
Ahmed Rashid Joy: Lastly, what I would like to highlight is that we have appointed a multilateral organization to assess the maturity of our sustainable finance and ESG, comparing with the global best practices. We are waiting for the report, and we will update you on that. That is it from me, Tarique bhai. Over to you. Thank you.
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: Thank you so much. Bank-level NPL continued at 2.27% with 134% coverage. We remain prudent on provisioning, accepting a modestly higher credit cost of 98 bps to maintain resilience against emerging asset quality risk. Moreover, aligning our country's first green bond framework with ICMA principles proves that discipline and sustainability remain firmly embedded in our strategy. Now, I would like to invite our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Masud Rana, to present our financial performance in greater detail.
Masud Rana: Thank you, Tarique. Assalamualaikum, and good evening to our viewers. I am pleased to share our up to Q3 financials with you all. I think, as you can heard from our colleagues, BRAC Bank has delivered a very strong set of results for the first nine months of 2026. Particularly, if we look at the progression by quarter-by-quarter, I would say our performance has grown quarter-over-quarter and improving. So in the first three quarters in 2026, our balance sheet has been growing quite steadily and consistently. If we look at year-on-year, it has grown by about 22%, and the first nine months, about 15%. So we are looking at something around 20% in the whole full year of 2026.
Masud Rana: I think this 15% perhaps a bit slower than earlier years, but however, if we look at the business environment, overall economic condition, I think that reflects the environment we are operating in. Our lending has grown by about 15% year-on-year. Year to date, it is 7%. And when I say 7% of our three business segments, retail led the growth. It has grown by about 18% in the lending side. Our deposit has grew, as you heard, it is 23% year-on-year, and very strong growth thanks to our distribution channel, particularly our CASA has improved by about more than a percent. It is now 42%. For the first nine months growth, about 52% has been contributed by our distribution network.
Masud Rana: And we have seen that particular growth in the CASA has been contributed by all three business segments. In terms of balance sheet momentum, as we say, I mean, we are facing and going through a difficult part or patch. We believe as we see the tail end of Q3 and October has also passed. Looking at that, we believe and we expect that we have also seen that some businesses are delivering pretty well, and we expect we would end the year with a high note, and we have some certain initiatives. While it is 7% year to date, we expect that we would end this year with a high note. When we look at our revenue, it is about BDT 5,317 crore, which is about 29% year-on-year.
Masud Rana: But if you look at our revenue, of which 80% is net interest income. Of that 80%, there is two balance sheet side. One is lending, which is roughly represents 60% of our NII, and rest 40% is predominantly coming from government bills and bonds. If we compare the year-on-year growth of this NII, it has grown by about 38%. If we look at the rest of our revenue, the 20% of our total revenue comes from our non-funded income, and it is quite well diversified within this basket, including the loan processing fee, deposit-related fees, credit card, FX, trade, and also capital gain portion from the investment that I mentioned.
Masud Rana: While this has kind of a flat over year-on-year, particularly because on the FX trade and other areas, the margin has been gone soft, but while that has been compensated through the volumes. Net-net, our revenue has grown by about 29%. On the yield side, if we look at on the yield on our assets, that has grown year-on-year by 26 basis point. Thanks to our local currency lending book, particularly from the SME and the retail, which has helped this growth of yield on assets. At the same time, our cost of deposit has gone by about 34%, and this has come from all across our three business segments. As a result, our spread has improved by 60 basis point. When I say this 5.17% is our spread, this is our lending spread.
Masud Rana: But if we consider our overall earning asset, our balance sheet spread would be around 4.6%, which has also improved on year-on-year basis, roughly 50 basis point. Our year-to-date cost-to-income ratio is about 41%, which has also improved by about 5% year-on-year. While we continue to invest on our people, infrastructure, and technology, we have kind of focusing on the value realization. In the earlier years, we have pouring investment for this, but for the last 18 months, we are trying to focus on the realization of this value. However, we are not shying away from investment, which we are continuing to do, particularly in the people and the technology side. However, as I said, in the first nine month, year-on-year, if you look at, our OPEX growth is about 14%.
Masud Rana: At the same time, our revenue growth is 29%, a clear 15% jaws. So resulting, and as you heard from our Chief Risk Officer, our loan impairment or the loan provisioning has been elevated, which is also considering the emerging risk and others, we are buffering. Put together everything, our bottom line for the first 9 months is BDT 1,584 as a solo basis. Our both return on assets and return on equity has improved very strongly. If you look at our overall group picture as an entity, if you go back just on this slide, yes. Here, our balance sheet has grown by about, as a group, 21%. Revenue is 26%, but it is about BDT 77 billion equivalent.
Masud Rana: As a group, our profit after tax is BDT 2,121 crore, and similar growth we can see in our return on asset and equity. Let us understand what our subsidiaries has contributed. If you look at our profit after tax contribution, these are four subsidiaries. The first two is our capital market subsidiaries, and one exchange house, and bKash. In the merchant bank, in Q3, they have again had some mark-to-market losses, and they have provision on the margin loan side. I think next year we would expect this merchant bank would do better because we have got some initiative going on. Brokerage has grown by about 90%, and this reported about a BDT 9 crore profit.
Masud Rana: I think a good story is in our exchange house, which was kind of reviving its business, and in the month of September, it has break-even, and we would expect that coming days would be better. We are expecting that 2027 would be quite a strong result we are expecting from this subsidiary. bKash, we will hear from our CFO, who has joined. Overall, I think that the right side of this, the left side is on the basis of the full consolidation, when we consolidate 100% of all the subsidiaries. The right side, we present the economic profit and/or the profit attributable to our shareholders.
Masud Rana: Just to, because I think at times, there are questions that when we say the overall consolidated profit, this is as per international accounting standard, this is the full consolidation, but we also would like to share this, what is specifically attributable to our shareholders, excluding the non-controlling interest. When I say our nine months results is BDT 2,121 crore for as a full consolidation, but the attributable portion would be BDT 1,760 crore. I think this clarity was needed while we always present this, but I just wanted to mention it. I think we had a great three quarter. We are expecting to continue this momentum and deliver a very strong result for the full year. Back to you, Tariq. Thank you.
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: Thank you. Thank you so much. Growth, cost efficiency, and capital strength all moving together. 41% cost-to-income ratio stand-alone demonstrates our execution rigor. We have delivered strong financial momentum with consolidated revenue growing 26% and PAT increasing 38%, while standalone PAT grew by 50% year-on-year. Our focus remains on sustainable profitable growth, improving return on assets and equity. Ultimately, our priority is to translate business growth into sustainable earning, stronger capital resilience, and long-term value creation for our stakeholders. Finally, I would like to invite the CFO of bKash to provide an update on the progress. Mohim, over to you.
Moinuddin Rahgir: Thank you, Tariq bhai. Good evening, viewers. I will just quickly take you through the highlights of Q3. In terms of customer numbers, we finished September with 85 million customers. We acquired about 7 million customers more in 2026, which averages around 26,000 customers a day. In terms of merchants, there are 989,000 merchants, which is up by about another 40,000 merchants over the last quarter that we reported. In terms of transaction volumes per month, it is BDT 1,357 billion average transaction volumes per month. If you translate that to a little over BDT 45 billion worth of transaction taking place every day. In terms of active customers, there are 49 million active customers, which is about 57% of the total customer base. Total number of agents across the country, which was 359,000.
Moinuddin Rahgir: In terms of remittance, BDT 222 billion was terminated through bKash. This represents almost about 7% of the total remittances coming to Bangladesh. Moving on to the right side, the gross revenue, we grew by 11%. This is a little softer than the previous year. Previous quarter, we grew by 15%. This quarter has been a little low at 11%. We finished Q3 up until September to BDT 6,097 crore, and the net revenue is BDT 5,398 crore, which is about 12% increase. The cost of services, which is the cost of maintaining the channel, the distributor, the agents, the telco payments, that grew at about 10% at BDT 3,348 crore, thus making a profit of BDT 2,051 crore. In terms of gross profit, we grew at about 15% at the backdrop of a net revenue increase of 12%.
Moinuddin Rahgir: Operating administrative expenses, that grew by 21%, and the two primary drivers of this increase is human resource cost and the cost of annual maintenance charges for technology-related cost. In commercial expenses, it is 7%. It is a normal below the inflation increase. That brings us to an operating profit of BDT 563 crore, which is 8% over same period last year. Net finance income was BDT 244 crore, which is 32% increase over last year. This is primarily being driven by the fact that bKash is now making profits, and that is adding to the net finance income. Take out the Workers' Profit Participation Fund, so about BDT 40 crore. The profit before tax was BDT 767 crore, and after tax is BDT 559 crore, which is 11% increase over last year. Gross revenue increased by 11%.
Moinuddin Rahgir: Bottom line also increased by 11%. Overall, it has been a good quarter, although a little softer than the last quarter, but we continue to grow from strength to strength. Thank you, Tariq bhai. That is it from bKash.
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: I would like to request you to leave it for a couple of minutes because we are expecting questions.
Moinuddin Rahgir: Sure.
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: For bKash, customer engagement is expanding with monthly transaction volume reaching about BDT 1,357 billion. That is operating levers furthering financial inclusion across the nation. To conclude, our performance over the first nine months reflects the resilience of our business, the strength of our franchise, and the collective efforts of our people. We remain focused on sustainable growth across all business segments, strengthening our SME leadership, deepening corporate relationship, and accelerating our retail banking franchises through digital innovation and customer engagement. Equally important, we remain committed to asset quality, prudent risk management, strong governance, and regulatory compliance. We believe sustainable growth must always be supported by disciplined and sound banking fundamentals. While the operating environment remains challenging, our focus will remain on what we can control, that is execution, productivity, customer experience, and accountability.
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: We will also continue to leverage our sustainability agenda and ecosystem partnership to create broader economic and social impact. Our ambition is not simply to grow bigger, but to become stronger, more efficient, and more impactful. I would like to thank our board, customer, shareholders, regulators, and colleagues for their continued trust and support. Thank you. I would now happy to take questions. Over to you, Deb.
[Company Representative] (BRAC Bank): Thank you, Tarique bhai. We received a couple of questions through mail. The first question is related to the macroeconomic situation. The question is, considering the macroeconomic situation, are there any emerging pressure in particular sectors or customer segments?
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: Okay, I will take this question. Considering our asset portfolio, which is well diversified across SME, corporate, and retail, roughly 48% in SME, 36% in corporate and wholesale banking, and 18% in retail respectively. This diversification provides a natural cushion against segmental specific shocks that we are expecting. Pressure is not in one area. We are unlikely to materially impact the portfolio's overall performance. Given the current macroeconomic context, this balanced structure, I believe, combined with prudent risk management, supports portfolio resilience while keeping quality assets at the center of our approach. That is my answer.
[Company Representative] (BRAC Bank): Thank you, Tarique bhai. The second question is related to our deposit growth, as we have seen in our presentation that the deposit has grew significantly over the period. The question is, has uncertainty around weaker banks contributed to BRAC Bank's deposit growth?
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: Well, uncertainty surrounding some weaker banks has contributed to deposit inflows, that is for sure. But it is flowing into stronger institutions like BRAC Bank, not only us, but many other banks as well. However, we believe our deposit growth is primarily driven by customers' continued confidence in our financial strength, sound fundamentals, good governance and service excellence. Not is just only shifting towards a stronger bank, it is not that happening. It is also considering all these aspects as well. We remain focused on strengthening this relationship and sustaining responsible quality deposit growth. Thank you so much.
[Company Representative] (BRAC Bank): Thank you, Tarique bhai. The next question is related to the financial partners, so I would request Masud bhai to answer this. To Masud bhai, with investment income contributing significantly to earnings, how sensitive is profitability to lowering government yields?
Masud Rana: Thank you, Zaid. Good question. Yes, it is sensitive, but I think so far whatever we have gained from this particular base has been unusual, I would say, in the last 18 to 24 months. Going forward, what will happen? The answer will be twofold, that yes, we would expect that the credit will grow, and therefore most of this funding will be diverted to credit. And I believe with our prudent underwriting and all, our return will be even higher. That is one. And even if that credit remains kind of as is, we would like to optimize or balance this out with our funding costs going forward.
[Company Representative] (BRAC Bank): Thank you, Masud bhai. So we have a few questions related to bKash, so I would request Mohim bhai to answer these questions. Mohim bhai, to you, the first question is that, how does management expect wider adoption of Bangla QR to affect bKash business? As well as what is the bKash strategy to protect its market share and profitability?
Moinuddin Rahgir: Bangla QR, as I mentioned in the slide, we are present at 989,000 outlets. All of them have Bangla. Proprietary QR is now banned, so it is all the QRs at 989,000 outlets are Bangla QR. We have seen the traction is going up in Bangla QR. Our ticket size that we are seeing at the Bangla QR is higher than the normal pre-Bangla QR stage, and we are trying to understand the reasons why. In terms of profitability, yes, it is having an impact on the profitability because of the zero IRF direction from the regulator.
[Company Representative] (BRAC Bank): Thank you, Mohim bhai. The next question is, bKash operating expense has grown by 21%, as we have seen showing in the PPT, whereas the gross profit has only increased by 15%. Is there any challenge with the revenue growth?
Moinuddin Rahgir: This year, as I said, the revenue growth has been at 11%, and the same number was 15% last year, or the last quarter. I do not see any immediate challenges, and we are still in the investment phase. Going to the future, revenues will continue to increase whilst our operating expenses will grow at a lower rate.
[Company Representative] (BRAC Bank): Thank you, Mohim bhai. That is all for the bKash part. I have last question. I would request Tarique bhai to answer this. Tarique bhai, over to you. The question is, we have learned that you have launched new initiative called Omnichannel. What is customer response so far?
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: Oh, we have been receiving so many responses, actually receiving so many responses from customers. Customers overwhelmingly actually accepting these new initiatives, and hopefully it will work as per expectation. In the next quarter, definitely there will be some sign of growth that is coming from this channel, you will definitely observe.
[Company Representative] (BRAC Bank): Thank you, Tarique bhai. That is all from my side.
Tareq Refat Ullah Khan: Also, if there are no further questions, we would like to conclude this today's session. Thank you all for joining us today, this evening, and for your valuable time and participation. Have a pleasant evening. Thank you all.
