Piramal Finance broadens lending as digital AUM rises 84%

Piramal Finance is broadening its retail lending mix while its mortgage businesses continue to grow. Digital-loan assets under management (AUM) rose 84% year on year to Rs 6,299 crore at Sep-26, rural micro-loan AUM rose 97% to Rs 1,762 crore, and gold-loan AUM reached Rs 65 crore after the business started during FY26.

How is Piramal Finance retaining mortgages as its main lending base?

Piramal Finance remains principally anchored in housing loans and loans against property (LAP), even as newer products grow faster. Housing-loan AUM increased 16% year on year to Rs 34,164 crore at Sep-26, while LAP AUM increased 43% to Rs 30,486 crore. Together, the two mortgage-backed portfolios were substantially larger than the Rs 6,299 crore digital-loan book and Rs 1,762 crore rural micro-loan book.

The growth mix within both mortgage businesses tilted towards lower-ticket segments. Housing loans below Rs 35 lakh had AUM of Rs 21,989 crore at Sep-26, up 26% year on year, compared with Rs 12,176 crore in the upper segment, up 11%. In LAP, loans below Rs 1.5 crore reached Rs 25,387 crore, up 74%, while LAP Plus loans above Rs 1.5 crore rose 38% to Rs 5,098 crore.

Housing-loan disbursements rose 7% year on year to Rs 2,958 crore in Q2 FY27 from Rs 2,777 crore in Q2 FY26. LAP disbursements rose 18% to Rs 3,824 crore from Rs 3,244 crore. The housing portfolio’s affordable segment reported an average ticket of Rs 15 lakh, a 56% average loan-to-value (LTV) ratio and a 12.3% disbursement yield, compared with Rs 62 lakh, 63% and 11.0% in the mass-affluent segment.

Which secured products is Piramal Finance growing outside mortgages?

Piramal Finance is expanding used-car loans, loans against securities (LAS) and gold loans outside its housing and LAP operations. Used-car AUM rose 25% year on year to Rs 6,008 crore at Sep-26, and Q2 FY27 disbursements were Rs 858 crore against Rs 821 crore in Q2 FY26. The portfolio reported an average ticket of Rs 6.8 lakh, an average CIBIL score of 751, a 69% average LTV and a 15.5% disbursement yield.

LAS AUM increased 45% year on year to Rs 1,714 crore at Sep-26. Net disbursements increased 65% year on year to Rs 200 crore in Q2 FY27 from Rs 121 crore in Q2 FY26. LAS had an average ticket of Rs 31 lakh, an average CIBIL score of 761, a 50% average LTV and a 9.7% disbursement yield, differing from the lower-ticket used-car portfolio.

Gold loans were the newest secured product in the presentation. Gold-loan AUM increased from nil at Mar-26 to Rs 6 crore at Jun-26 and Rs 65 crore at Sep-26, while net disbursements rose from Rs 6 crore in Q1 FY27 to Rs 59 crore in Q2 FY27. The product had an average ticket of Rs 1.4 lakh, a 16.6% disbursement yield and a 12-month tenure.

The gold-loan distribution rollout also expanded quickly. Gold branches rose from 22 at Mar-26 to 67 at Jun-26 and 100 at Sep-26, while average monthly net disbursement per branch rose from Rs 7.9 lakh to Rs 25 lakh over the same period. Management said the business was on track to reach 200 gold-loan branches by the end of FY27.

How fast are Piramal Finance’s unsecured lending products growing?

Piramal Finance’s digital-loan business was its fastest-growing reported unsecured portfolio excluding rural micro loans. Digital-loan AUM rose 84% year on year to Rs 6,299 crore at Sep-26, and Q2 FY27 disbursements rose 131% to Rs 3,150 crore from Rs 1,364 crore in Q2 FY26. The business had 14 live programmes across nine partners, an average ticket of Rs 91,000, an average CIBIL score of 761 and a 14.9% disbursement yield.

Salaried personal loans and unsecured business loans (UBL) also expanded, but at lower AUM growth rates than digital loans. Salaried personal-loan AUM increased 43% year on year to Rs 9,179 crore at Sep-26, while UBL AUM increased 17% to Rs 6,523 crore. Q2 FY27 disbursements were Rs 1,912 crore for salaried personal loans and Rs 1,075 crore for UBL, compared with Rs 1,459 crore and Rs 886 crore respectively a year earlier.

The two unsecured products reported different customer metrics and yields. Salaried personal loans had an average ticket of Rs 5.5 lakh, an average CIBIL score of 763 and a 16.6% disbursement yield. UBL had an average ticket of Rs 5.2 lakh, an average CIBIL score of 752 and an 18.6% yield. At Q2 FY27, loans more than 90 days past due, or 90+ DPD, were 0.7% for salaried personal loans, 1.1% for UBL and 0.9% for digital loans.

Digital-loan 90+ DPD declined from 2.5% in Q4 FY25 to 0.9% in Q4 FY26 and remained 0.9% in Q2 FY27. The presentation also showed a 2.5% ratio in Q2 FY25, indicating that the reported delinquency measure declined while the digital portfolio increased from Rs 3,425 crore at Sep-25 to Rs 6,299 crore at Sep-26.

What is Piramal Finance’s rural lending strategy?

Piramal Finance identifies micro loans as the first product in its emerging rural strategy. Rural micro-loan AUM rose 97% year on year to Rs 1,762 crore at Sep-26 from Rs 894 crore at Sep-25. Disbursements reached Rs 610 crore in Q2 FY27, compared with Rs 408 crore in Q2 FY26, following Rs 487 crore of disbursements in Q1 FY27.

The rural product had an average ticket of Rs 57,000, a weighted-average disbursement yield of 21.4% across organic and business-correspondent originations, and a tenure of 24 to 30 months. Piramal Finance said 99% of rural loans originated were first-round loans. Its customer examples included Rs 76,000 for a kirana shop owner to purchase stock and Rs 65,000 for a daily business owner to purchase cattle.

The rural branch network increased from 76 branches at Sep-25 to 203 at Sep-26, alongside 192 business correspondent branches. The operation covered Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Piramal Finance’s total branch network reached 838 at Sep-26, comprising 535 urban branches, 203 rural branches and 100 gold branches, compared with 701 total branches at Mar-26.

Rural micro-loan asset quality improved from the earlier reported peak. The 90+ DPD ratio declined to 0.4% in Q2 FY27 from 6.9% in both Q3 FY25 and Q4 FY25. For originations measured at 12 months on book, the FY26 Q2 rural micro-loan vintage had 90+ DPD of 0.9%, compared with 8.7% for the FY25 Q2 vintage.

Conclusion

Piramal Finance’s reported expansion retains mortgages as the largest lending base, with housing loans and LAP totalling Rs 64,650 crore of AUM at Sep-26. At the same time, faster growth in digital loans, rural micro loans, LAS, salaried personal loans and gold loans is extending the company across secured, unsecured and rural customer segments with differing ticket sizes, yields and distribution models.

The next disclosed operational target is the planned expansion of gold-loan branches to 200 by the end of FY27, from 100 at Sep-26. Other measures to watch are the rural network after 203 branches, digital activity beyond 14 live programmes with nine partners, and whether reported 90+ DPD remains at 0.9% for digital loans and 0.4% for rural micro loans as their AUM expands.