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 capital increase from Emirates NBD by the first quarter of the next financial year, after which the bank will begin the process of ownership and management changes, the CEO and managing director of RBL Bank Limited said during the bank’s Q3 earnings call on Saturday.
“Looking at the queries and discussions taking place between the regulator and the applicant, we think it will take around two-three months,” said R. Subramaniakumar.
On October 18, the bank announced that it would acquire a majority stake in Emirates NBD for $3 billion. ₹26,850 crore, marking the largest ever FDI and equity fund raising in the Indian banking sector. Following the investment, Emirates NBD will be designated as the backer of the domestic bank. Shareholders approved the transaction in November 2025.
“Objectively, we think that regardless of the communication, maybe in the first quarter we will be able to have all the approvals in place and follow the rest of the process,” Subramaniakumar said. When the deal was announced in October 2025, Subramaniakumar had said that the bank expected to receive approvals within 5-6 months.
Meanwhile, he said the bank’s priority is to build granular liabilities at lower deposit cost, achieve a more balanced retail asset mix through faster growth of secured loans, strengthen branch-led customer acquisition and deposit mobilization, deepen relationships and product penetration across the existing customer base, and improve operational efficiency for more predictable profitability trends.
“We have already chalked out the strategy for the bank to grow on both the asset and liability side,” he said, adding that the bank is looking at expanding the number of branches and increasing focus on segments such as SME banking, wealth management and NRI business.
Mumbai: RBL Bank Limited expects to receive regulatory and other approvals for capital increase from Emirates NBD by the first quarter of the next financial year, after which the bank will begin the process of ownership and management changes, the CEO and managing director of RBL Bank Limited said during the bank’s Q3 earnings call on Saturday.
“Looking at the queries and discussions taking place between the regulator and the applicant, we think it will take around two-three months,” said R. Subramaniakumar.
On October 18, the bank announced that it would acquire a majority stake in Emirates NBD for $3 billion. ₹26,850 crore, marking the largest ever FDI and equity fund raising in the Indian banking sector. Following the investment, Emirates NBD will be designated as the backer of the domestic bank. Shareholders approved the transaction in November 2025.
“Objectively, we think that regardless of the communication, maybe in the first quarter we will be able to have all the approvals in place and follow the rest of the process,” Subramaniakumar said. When the deal was announced in October 2025, Subramaniakumar had said that the bank expected to receive approvals within 5-6 months.
Meanwhile, he said the bank’s priority is to build granular liabilities at lower deposit cost, achieve a more balanced retail asset mix through faster growth of secured loans, strengthen branch-led customer acquisition and deposit mobilization, deepen relationships and product penetration across the existing customer base, and improve operational efficiency for more predictable profitability trends.
“We have already chalked out the strategy for the bank to grow on both the asset and liability side,” he said, adding that the bank is looking at expanding the number of branches and increasing focus on segments such as SME banking, wealth management and NRI business.
RBL Bank Q3 results
The bank announced net profit ₹214 crore for the period affected by one-time pre-tax expenses. ₹32 crore. These expenses have occurred due to the change in the definition of wages in the new labor law that comes into force as of November 21, 2025.
Net interest income (NII) increased 5% year-on-year and 7% quarter-on-quarter. ₹1,657 crore, supported by healthy net interest margin of 4.63%.
Other income, excluding a one-off gain from the sale of a strategic equity investment, in the 3rd quarter of FY25 increased by 13% both on an annual basis and sequentially. ₹1,050 crore. Core wage income also remained strong, rising 10% year-on-year and 3% quarterly. ₹959 crore.
Asset quality and deposit growth
RBL Bank reports sequential improvement in asset quality with reduction in net NPAs ₹567 crore in December quarter ₹572.4 crore in the previous quarter. The net NPA rate also decreased from 0.57% to 0.55%.
Gross NPAs also declined. ₹1,961.5 crore ₹2,377.6 crore in the previous quarter, while the gross NPA ratio narrowed from 2.32% to 1.88% sequentially.
Net advances increased 14% year-on-year and 3% quarter-on-quarter ₹1.0 trillion, of which retail advances increased 10% year-on-year and 1% quarter-on-quarter ₹60,611 crore. The mix of retail and wholesale was 59:41.
Secured retail advances increased 24% annually and 1% sequentially; Jaideep Iyer, head of strategy, said retail secured businesses as a group are now profitable at the operating level and performance is expected to improve as the bank builds scale.
“The growth rate of secured retail will be much faster in the coming period, in the range of 30-35%, while the unsecured portion will grow perhaps in the ‘low teens’ because this is something that is determined over a period of time,” said Subramaniakumar, adding that the bank aims to reduce the share of unsecured loans to around 25% currently, from last year’s peak of 34% and 26% currently.
credit cards shine
Growth in unsecured loans increased by 1% consecutively, reversing its trend, driven by growth after 6-7 quarters of growth in the bank’s credit card portfolio. Subramaniakumar said credit card losses remain slightly elevated and the bank expects it will take another 2-3 quarters for delinquency rates to normalize.
“The macro environment (for credit cards) remains challenging and there are parts of our portfolio that appear to be under stress. We are seeing some delays in the implementation of these solutions,” Iyer said, adding that the incremental or newer sourced portfolio with a maturity of 6-18 months has behaved well, though the bank does not expect any significant improvement in portfolio asset quality for 2-3 quarters.
“The leading indicators are extremely encouraging and we’re comfortable with how the portfolio is doing in that direction. The legacy portfolio, which has some challenges, is taking a little bit more time to resolve itself compared to our previous thinking. So we’re being cautious here,” he said.
Subramaniakumar said the bank will maintain its current funding rate of 1 lakh cards per month, which will allow the portfolio to grow around 10-15%.
