ICICI Bank’s home loans cross Rs 2L cr

Mumbai: ICICI Bank has said that its share of home loans in its advances portfolio increased to 32.4% in the current fiscal from 28% a year ago. This follows mortgage growing at a healthy clip of 15%, even as the overall loans grew only 6% year on year. The bank on Tuesday said that its retail mortgage portfolio crossed Rs 2 lakh crore in the first half and it sees its share rising further.
ICICI Bank executive director Anup Bagchi said that it took the bank four years to double its home loan book to Rs 2 lakh crore.He said that given that the mortgage book was growing, the next Rs 1 lakh crore would come in less than four years. This would also result in the share of home loans in the bank’s books going up further.
Bagchi attributed the increased pace of loan disbursement to the digitisation of the loan application process, which enabled faster processing of loans. He said that the bank had seen record disbursements in October but did not share the figures.
Home loan demand rose because of sharp discounts on stamp duty, reduction in prices by builders and interest rates on home loans being at a record low. The RBI has also made it more profitable for lenders to provide home loans by reducing the capital requirement on loans over Rs 75 lakh.