ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd

Price story Before the numbers, the tape. A stock price moves through four repeating seasons: a flat base (stage 1), an advance (2), a top (3), a decline (4). Where the price sits in that cycle frames everything below.

ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd trades at ₹35.2, in a confirmed uptrend and 4 weeks into that stage. That is +20.6% against its own 200-day average. It sits at 93% of a 52-week range of ₹21 to ₹36. On relative strength it has been ahead of the NIFTY 500 on a trailing-13-week view for 16 straight weeks.

Today the stock is in a confirmed uptrend — week 4 of stage 2, confirmed. At ₹35.2 it trades +20.6% versus its 200-day average and sits at 93% of its 52-week range (₹21–₹36).

Against the market, two honest reads. Cumulative: over the last 2.7 years the stock moved −51% while the NIFTY 500 moved +32% — behind the index over the full window. Recent form: on a trailing-13-week view the stock has been ahead for 16 straight weeks — the ribbon below is that same metric, week by week.

What would end the trend, mechanically: two Friday closes in a row below the 200-day line. That is the exit rule — no debates.

→ The trend is one thing; the bill is another. Are you paying up for it? Next: the P/BV sits at the 94th percentile of its own range.

Valuation For a bank we price the book, not the earnings: P/BV is what the market pays for each ₹1 of the bank's net worth. A bank below 1× book is priced below the value of what it owns, net of what it owes.

ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd trades at 1.1× P/BV, at the pricey end of its own range (94th percentile). Its long-run median P/BV is 0.8×, measured across 2.5 years of weekly readings. This places the multiple against the stock’s own record, and says nothing about what the business is worth.

Today's P/BV of 1.1× is at the pricey end of its own range (94th percentile), against a long-run median of 0.8× measured over 2.5 years of weekly readings. This is a comparison against the stock's own history — not a claim about what it is worth.

The honest context for that discount: a bank earning about −9% on its equity is worth less per rupee of book, and the market has priced that in rather than overlooked it. The discount closes only if the returns themselves improve.

Put together: the multiple is full against its own past, so the story rests on the book-value line underneath it, not the multiple.

A quarterly PEG curve, which only the second data source carries, is not drawn on this page: its two data sources do not share enough overlapping reported history to be compared. A figure nobody could check is not used to price growth — the gap is a decision, not missing data.

→ Cheap or dear rides on the earnings. Are they actually growing? Next: the fundamental stage — where the business sits in its arc, and how growth has compounded.

Stage: No read Every business sits somewhere on a fundamental arc, and this page names the spot before anything else. The last twelve quarters of revenue, profit and EPS growth — plus the return the business earns on its capital — are read as curves: Deteriorating (the curves are falling), Turning around (a trough has just formed and the last few quarters lift off it), Improving (the climb off the trough is sustained), Consistent (steadily positive with healthy returns), Topping out (still high but decelerating from the peak). When the curves genuinely disagree the read is Mixed; too little history is No read. CAGR (compound annual growth rate) is the smooth yearly pace that turns the starting value into the latest one — the fairest way to compare growth across different time spans. Read the columns together: if the 1-year number towers over the 10-year, recent growth is running hotter than the long-run trend. A dash means that window is not held, or the base year was a loss (where a growth rate is not meaningful).

ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd reads as no read on its fundamental arc. Under eight usable quarters on the growth trio — not enough history for an honest trajectory read. The read is built from 10 quarters across 2 curves, on partial evidence.

Why it matters: with too little history, an honest page says so instead of guessing a trajectory.

One or more growth curves carry a base-effect spike — a large year-on-year move off a near-zero or loss-making comparable quarter. Those spikes are capped before the classifier reads the trajectory, and shown pinned on the chart, so a single distorted quarter does not drive the stage call.

Return readings here are annual, not quarterly — read as level and direction only; they can confirm the growth curves but never drive the stage on their own.

Fewer than eight usable quarters on the growth curves — this page will not guess a trajectory from a stub of history.

→ The stage names the trajectory. Next: the revenue line that produces it, quarter by quarter.

4-Factor Sector Score

50.5/100 — rank 5 of 9 in Banks - Small Finance · 72% evidence confidence

ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd scores 50.5 out of 100 against the 9 companies it is compared with in Banks - Small Finance, ranking 5. Balanced evidence: keep at normal research priority and require another comparable period before raising conviction.

The four contributions add to the total exactly: 20.1 + 3.9 + 7.6 + 18.9 = 50.5. This is the SAME number shown on the sector comparison — it is computed once, for the whole peer set, and read here.

What would change it: The read weakens if ROA rolls over or gross NPA rises while sector-relative strength deteriorates.

Revenue For a bank, revenue is everything the franchise earns — interest on the loan book plus fee and other income.

ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd reported ₹995 Cr of income in the Mar 26 quarter, +11.5% year on year. Over 9 years it has compounded at 70.5% a year. The last full year, FY26, came in at ₹3,537 Cr. The last four reported quarters add to ₹3,537 Cr.

ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd reported ₹995 Cr of income in the Mar 26 quarter, +11.5% year on year. Over 9 years it has compounded at 70.5% a year. The last full year, FY26, came in at ₹3,537 Cr. The last four reported quarters add to ₹3,537 Cr.

FY26 revenue came in at ₹3,537 Cr (−8.3% on the year), capping 9 years at 70.5% compound. The latest quarter (Mar 26) printed ₹995 Cr, +11.5% year on year.

Pace check: the last four quarters averaged −7.7% growth against the decade's 70.5% — the current year is running slower than its own long-run rate.

Acceleration check: trailing-twelve-month revenue grew −8.3% over the last 4 quarters against −3.8%/yr over the last 8 — rolling over.

→ Revenue grew — did the net margin hold as it scaled? Next: 2.4% this quarter (+22.9 pp YoY).

Net margin Net margin — what the bank keeps of every ₹100 of revenue after every cost, provision and tax. It is the cleanest single margin we can read for a lender.

ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd's net margin is 2.4% in the Mar 26 quarter, +22.9 percentage points against the same quarter a year ago. Across 10 fiscal years the net margin has ranged −13.5% to 13.4%. The current quarter sits inside that band.

ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd's net margin is 2.4% in the Mar 26 quarter, +22.9 percentage points against the same quarter a year ago. Across 10 fiscal years the net margin has ranged −13.5% to 13.4%. The current quarter sits inside that band.

The latest quarter's net margin is 2.4%, +22.9 pp against the same quarter a year ago. Across 10 fiscal years the net margin has ranged −13.5%–13.4%.

Why: the numbers show the net margin move clearly, but the cost lines behind it sit below what we hold — so we state the move without inventing its driver.

→ The net margin held — did that reach the bottom line? Next: profit null in the latest quarter.

Net profit Net profit is what survives every cost, interest and tax — the number EPS, dividends and book value all grow from.

ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd earned ₹24.0 Cr of net profit in the Mar 26 quarter. The full FY26 year was a loss of ₹166 Cr. That is 2.4% of the quarter's revenue. The same quarter a year earlier lost ₹183 Cr. 5 of the last 12 reported quarters were loss-making.

ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd earned ₹24.0 Cr of net profit in the Mar 26 quarter. The full FY26 year was a loss of ₹166 Cr. That is 2.4% of the quarter's revenue. The same quarter a year earlier lost ₹183 Cr. 5 of the last 12 reported quarters were loss-making.

Mar 26 profit was ₹24.0 Cr, null year on year. On the full year, FY26 printed ₹−166 Cr (null).

→ Profit is up — how clean is the loan book behind it? Next: gross NPA is 5.41%, 2 quarters better in a row.

Asset quality — the ladder Gross NPA is the slice of the loan book where repayments have stopped. Net NPA is what remains after the money already set aside against those loans. Falling is healing; rising is damage arriving.

ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd's gross NPA is 5.41% of the loan book in Mar 26, down from 6.87% a year ago. Net of provisions already set aside, 1.77% remains. That is the 2nd straight quarter of improvement. Across the 12 quarters held here the book has ranged 1.65% to 8.54%.

Mar 26: gross NPA at 5.41% and net NPA at 1.77%, against 6.87% / 2.99% a year ago. Over the 12 quarters we hold, the book's worst reading was 8.54% and its best is 1.65%. The ladder has now improved for 2 consecutive quarters.

The synthesis: profit growth at a bank is only as good as the book behind it, and this book is healing on a multi-quarter streak. A note on depth: quarterly provisioning detail is not in our numbers yet, so this ladder reads levels and trend, not the cost of the cleanup.

Why the ladder moved: recoveries, write-offs and slippages each play a part, and that split sits below what we hold — the numbers show the healing; the driver mix does not travel with them.

→ Behind a cleaner book — is the book itself still growing? Next: revenue grew −8.3% in FY26.

The loan book We read the loan book through revenue — when the book grows, revenue grows with it. It is a rough proxy, and we say so: rate moves and fee swings can shift it a few points in any one year.

ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd's revenue grew −8.3% in FY26 to ₹3,537 Cr, so the book is flat. The latest quarter ran +11.5% year on year. The net margin on that income is 2.4%, +22.9 percentage points against a year ago.

FY26 revenue was ₹3,537 Cr, −8.3% on the year, and the latest quarter ran +11.5% year on year. The net margin on that revenue is 2.4% this quarter (+22.9 pp YoY) — growth with a widening margin on it.

The synthesis: a lender compounds when the book grows while the margin holds and the loan book stays clean — gross NPA is the loan-quality read we carry here.

→ Does all of this actually earn its keep on equity? Next: ROE is −9%.

Returns on equity and assets Two numbers rate a bank: ROE — what it earns on shareholder money — and ROA — what it earns on everything it deploys. ROE above ~13–15% earns its keep; below that, growth builds book slowly.⚠ unverified

ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd earns a return on equity of −9% in FY26. Its trough over the ladder below was −23% in FY25. On the asset side every ₹100 of the balance sheet earned about ₹−0.57, which is the return before leverage is applied.

FY26 ROE came in at −9%, recovered from a FY25 trough of −23%. On assets, the latest reading is about −0.57% — every ₹100 the bank deploys earns roughly ₹−0.57 a year. That return is below the bar a bank must clear to compound book value quickly — which is also the honest reason the stock trades where it does.

Why: the ROE ladder shows the move; the deposit-cost and provisioning drivers behind it sit below what we hold.

→ Who owns this bank, and are they adding or leaving? Next: Domestic institutions cut 5.1 points over 8 quarters.

Debt

For a bank, borrowings are raw material, not a warning sign — solvency is read through the returns and the loan book. A manufacturer’s debt is a claim against its profits, so the debt-to-equity lens that works everywhere else misleads on a lender and is not applied here.

A manufacturer’s debt is a claim against its profits; a bank’s borrowings are its inventory — money taken in to be lent out. The debt lens that works everywhere else misleads here, so this page does not apply it. The solvency questions for a bank — is the loan book sound, is the equity earning — are read through the loan-book and returns sections above.

→ Who owns this, and are they adding or leaving? Next: Domestic institutions cut 5.1 points over 8 quarters.

Ownership Who owns the stock, quarter by quarter: promoters (the controlling owners), foreign and domestic institutions, and the public. Steady accumulation by people close to the numbers is a signal; a quiet register is also an answer.

Domestic institutions cut 5.1 points of ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd over 8 quarters, the biggest move on the register. That takes domestic institutions to 3.8% of the company. Foreign institutions moved +0.2 points over the same window, to 0.3%. The register is read on the four disclosed classes only; nothing is inferred between filings.

The register over the last two years — Domestic institutions: −5.1 points over 8 quarters to 3.8%; Foreign institutions: +0.2 points over 8 quarters to 0.3%; Promoters: −0.1 points over 8 quarters to 63.3%.

🚨 Why the register moved: domestic institutions drove it (−5.1 points) — distribution into the market’s bid.

→ One last check: does the safety math agree? Next: the balance-sheet safety line.

Safety line The Z-score estimates how far a company sits from balance-sheet distress — above roughly 3 is safe, below roughly 1.8 is the danger zone. It was built for manufacturers, so it is not applied to banks and lenders.

ESAF Small Finance Bank Ltd: the Z-score is omitted — it was built for manufacturers, not banks, and applying it here would be theatre. The Z-score was built for manufacturers and is not applied to banks and lenders, so solvency here is read from the capital and asset-quality lines instead.

The safety line in one sentence: the Z-score is omitted — it was built for manufacturers, not banks, and applying it here would be theatre.

Frequently asked questions