Thank you very much. Good evening and very warm welcome to all the participants to the J&K Bank December 2024 Earning Call. This is my first interaction with you all in my new role as MD and CEO of this Bank since taking over on 30th of December 2024. At the outset, I would like to briefly introduce myself. My name is Amita va Chatterjee and in my last professional capacity , I was discharging my duties as Deputy Managing Director, Commercial Clients Group of State Bank of India. I have had a career spanning over 3 decades with SBI where I joined as a pro bationary officer in 1990 and held key leadership roles across diverse geographical locations and strategic functions including leading S BI‟s operations as CGM Circle Head in New Delhi as well as Jaipur. I have also served as the MD and CEO of SBI Capital Markets. Accompanying me on this call are my fellow colleagues from the Bank‟s Senior Management, Executive Director - Mr. Sudhir Gupta; Corporate Credit Head – Mr. Ashutosh Sareen; Retail Credit and Liability Head – Mr. Narjay Gupta; Impaired Assets Portfolio Management Head – Mr. Rajesh Mal la Tikoo; Finance Head – Mr. Sushil Kumar Gupta ; Chief Risk Officer - Mr. Altaf Hussain Kira and DGM Treasury – Mr. Ajay Kohli. Whilst this Bank has a rich legacy of over 8 decades and is a household name in this part of the country that is UTs of J&K and Ladakh , the Bank has frequently been in news in the recent past for all the good reasons with the remarkable turnaround of the Bank appreciated by one and all, including the Honorable Prime Minister. As I venture into this new role, I am fully cognizant of the responsibility on my shoulders to sustain the good work done under the leadership of my predecessor, Mr. Balde v Prakash, and build upon it further to take the Bank to even greater heights in the years ahead. My foremost an d immediate focus is on fulfilling the commitments made by the Bank with respect to market guidance for FY 25 which we maintain unchanged, though we acknowledge that achieving the set guidance on a few parameters would be a little challenging, especially given the economic slowdown being witnessed that is credit growth of 15%, deposit growth of 12%, CASA of 50%, NIM 3.75%-3.85%, return on assets 1.25%-1.30%, return on equity 17%- 18% and GNPA at 3.5%. The reassessment and consequent realignment of the Bank‟s strategies if needed will be taken up at the beginning of the next financial year only. From an economic outlook perspe ctive, the global economy is projected to remain resilient as it has been in 2024 despite several headwinds with IMF retaining its stable yet underwhelming growth forecast for 24 and 25 unchanged at 3.2% amidst waning inflation. Domestically, there has been a slowdown in the growth momentum with growth in real GDP in quarter 2 at 5.4%, which is the lowest in seven quarters. This decline in growth is mainly on account of substantial deceleration in industrial growth from 7.4% in quarter 1 to 2.1% in quarter 2. Another reason for the moderation in growth is the exhaustion of the pent -up demand accumulated during the pandemic. As a result of this slowdown, RBI has reduced its growth projection for Financial Year „2 4-25 from 7.2% -6.6%. However, high frequency indicators in quarter 3 indicate that the slowdown has bottomed out and Indian economy is recovering from the slowdown in momentum, aided by strong festive demand and pick up in rural activities with real GDP growth for quarte r 3 and quarter 4 projected at 6.8% and 7.2% respectively . Despite this downward revision, India's medium -term prospects remain healthy with India set to become the world‟s third largest economy by 2030-2031 and forecast to grow at an annual rate of 6.7%. Thus, Indian economy is said to maintain its position as a major driver of global growth at a time when the overall world economy is projected to remain relatively stagnant. With inflation gradually moving towards central Bank targets from multi -decadal h ighs, several central banks have embarked on policy pivots. However, the Monetary Policy Committee of RBI has kept the policy repo rate unchanged with neutral stance and focus on durable alignment of inflation with the target while supporting growth. During the quarter, RBI has in consistency with the neutral policy stance , reduced CRR by 50 b ps in 2 equal tranches of 25 b ps with effect from December 14 and December 28, 2024 to 4% to ease any potential liquidity stress in coming months due to tax outflows , increase in currency in circulation and volatility in capital flows with this step estimated to release a primary liquidity of about Rs. 1.16 lakh crore to the banking system. Our home territory of J&K is not behind when it comes to economic development with state GDP doubling from Rs. 1.7 lakh crore in 2015 -16 to Rs. 2.45 lakh crore in 23 -24, despite facing challenges in the form of massive floods, political unrest and COVID-19 pandemic. And the GDP is estimated to double again in the next 5 years, with e mphasis on the service sector, industries, horticulture and tourism according to the JK Economic Survey 2022-23. The year 2024 has been significant for J&K, marked by developments across political, economic and social spheres with important events like suc cessful conduct of state elections with high voter turnout of around 64% , multiple visits by the honorable Prime Minister to the region, showcasing the government‟s commitment to the regions development and laying foundation for projects worth Rs. 41,700 crores with inauguration of institutions like AIIMS in the region. With the beginning of 2025, Kashmir‟s long-awaited dream of rail connectivity will finally see the light of the day with the Srinagar-New Delhi rail link, a monumental infrastructure project spanning over 2 decades set to become a reality with its scheduled inauguration this month. The new rail link promises to be a game changer for various stakeholders, including local businesses, students, tourists and non-local workers as it opens doors to enhanced connectivity and economic growth. J&K Tourism Department has declared 2024 as one of the best tourist seasons in the Valley‟s history as the UT of J&K welcomed 2.35 crore s tourists in 2024 with an extraordinary 300% increase in foreign tourist arrivals over the past 2.5 years. With the inauguration of the Z-Morh Tunnel, the popular tourist destination of Sonmarg would also open up for winter tourism. The railway connectivity and the plans to develop 4 new destinations , Kokernag, Doodhpathri, Bhaderwah and Barad ari with world class tourist infrastructure as a joint venture between the World Bank, J&K government and the Centre, will further boost tourism in the UT, thereby contributing to the region's continued economic transformation as tourist industry stands as the second main industry in Kashmir after horticulture. Shifting focus to the financial performance of the Bank for quarter 3 and 9 months of Financial Year „2 5, I am pleased to annou nce that the Bank has continued its recent history of consistently recording impressive profitability numbers again this quarter and is on course to post lifetime record annual profits for the third year in a row which is testimony to the remarkable turnar ound of this Bank and its commitment to deliver on the promises made. Operating profit for this quarter is again almost touching Rs. 750 cores with net profit for the quarter recorded at Rs. 532 crores, witnessing a Y-o-Y growth of 33%. The Bank has done reasonably well in the last two quarters in mobilizing deposits, registering a 9.7% growth Y-o-Y despite a degrowth in quarter 1 and considering that historically, deposit growth has been better in quarter 4, we expect to further improve upon this in the last quarter. However, there are challenges on the CASA front, which are persistent across the banking industry with share of term deposits in the total deposits rising to 61.4% in September 24 from 59.8% a year ago as per the RBI data. The reduction in CASA ratio owing to the accretion in term deposits at a much faster pace than CASA is attributable mainly to two reason viz.want for higher returns driven by high inflation and people parking their funds in high-interest rate deposits before impending rate cuts, with 84% of our term deposits in the 7%-8% interest rate bucket. In our case also, term deposits have grown at 15% Y-o-Y against a growth of only 4.4% in CASA deposits. Despite this, the Bank continues to maintain its position of having one of the bes t CASA ratios in the industry even in these challenging times at 48.17% with CASA in our home territories of Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh, which accounts for around 90% of our deposit base still holding strong at abo ve 51%. Though in terms of CASA ratio, there is a reduction on Q-on-Q basis, in absolute terms the CASA deposits have increased by 1.25% quarter-on-quarter. With the release of government payments in Q4, payment realization in horticulture sector, strong winter tourism season and the probable continuation in the slowdown in equity markets, we expect augmentation of our CASA ratio in the last quarter. Advances growth has been lagging with net advances, only growing at 7% Y-o-Y while on quarter-on-quarter basis there has hardly been any change. This slow growth in advances has not been broad based though with advances to personal , SME and agriculture sectors ma king up around 61% of the banks gross advances, growing at more than 10% Y-o-Y. The sectors which have been mainly contributing to this ov erall lag in growth of advances are trade and corporate, remaining almost stagnant or marginally below the numbers a year ago , with part of the reasons for the same being the caution exercised in certain sectors by design , owing to the caution sounded by various regulators and a conscious decision, for the time being, to focus on higher yielding retail loans in order to compensate the pressure on margins on account of higher cost of deposits due to change in mix which were mentioned in the previous earnings call as well. The Bank's decision is yielding intended results with consistent improvement in NIM for two quarters now , though in the current quarter , the improvement in NIM has been partially aided by a boost in yield on investments as well rising 7 bps quarter-on-quarter to 6.90 for quarter 3. With NIM for 9 months being recorded at 3.93%, comfortably above our guidance, we now intend to improve our focus on corporate loans in the last quarter for improving our advances growth with an aim to maintain a retail corporate split at around 2:1. Within our biggest sector of personal finance Y-o-Y growth in rest of India at 17.8% has outpaced the growth in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh at 9.5% with housing loans being the best performing segment at Bank level wi th 13.1% Y-o-Y growth, whereas in rest of India both housing loans and car loans have grown rapidly at 18.4% and 22.4% Y-o-Y respectively which again shows that the Bank is successfully executing its plans for expanding in retail portfolio in the rest of India. The income statement reflects positive throughout with net interest income for 9 months growing at 10.7% Y-o-Y and other income at 21.9% Y-o-Y while the operating costs continue to be under control growing marginally at 1.1% only with the biggest co ntributor, t he employee cost declining by almost 2 % Y-o-Y. Most notable within the income statement is a growth of 32% -33% Y-o-Y in both operating profit and net profit for the 9 months with operating profit for the period crossing Rs. 2,100 crores and net profit almost reaching Rs. 1,500 crores recorded at Rs. 1,498 crores exactly. The fact that this growth has been recorded over a year in which Bank has already posted record lifetime profits adds further weight to it. In line with the expectations outlined by us in our earnings call a year ago , cost of deposits seemed to have peaked with high accretion in term deposits , especially in the high interest rate bucket of 7%-8% and is moderating now reducing by 4 b ps quarter-on-quarter and recorded at 4.76% for quarter 3 and 4.74% for the 9 months. The annualized returns on assets and return on equity for 9 months have been recorded at 1.28 % and 16 .96% and are in line with our guidance for the fiscal. Cost to income ratio where the Bank was an outlier with the cost to income ratio of 77.18% for Financial Year „2 1-22 has been brought to a comparable level of below 60% being recorded at 57.80 for the 9 months, with further moderation expected going forward. In terms of asset quality , though the recoveries have slowed down o wing to the impact of slowdown in the domestic economy on borrower ‟s repayment capacities, fresh slippages continue to remain un der control with gross slippage ratio for the 9 months for current financial year below 1% ma rk that is 0.97% annualized against 1.29% for the corresponding period last year. Gross NPA has wi tnessed an increase in quarter 3 with GNPA ratio being recorded at 4.08% as on 31st December 2024 and consequently net NPA also witnessing an increase and being recorded at 0.94%. However, the Bank expects substantial improvement in these parameters in quarter 4 as the Bank has launched a special one-time settlement scheme, Karz Se Mukti , which is valid till 31st of March 25. Such a scheme was being demanded by the Trade and Industry bodies in our core territories and hence the Bank expects good response and recovery under the same . Despite this increase in GNPA in the curre nt quarter, t he credit cost continues to be benign, and we expect it to remain like this for the current fiscal in line with our earlier guidance. The Bank continues to maintain a healthy PCR of around 90%. On the capital front, CRA R has been recorded at 15.09% and CET 1 at 11.67% without reckoning the 9 months net profit which has an incremen tal impact of 148 bps . With continuing healthy internal accruals , the Bank is well placed with adequate capital buffers. Further increase in foreign institutional investors and FPI shareholding of the Bank from 5.81% a year ago to 7.07% as on 31st December 24, despite the financial services sector experiencing the highest FPI outflow of Rs. 54,500 crores in 2024 is a strong validation of the bank‟s growth story and long-term potential. The platform for another record -breaking year is set and we expect a go od ending to the current financial year, coinciding with a good beginning to my innings as leader of this resilient institution. I thank you all for listening patiently and look forward to your support and trust going ahead for taking this Bank forward and delivering value to our customers and other stakeholders. I will be glad to have your questions now. Thank you very much.