LIC Housing Finance plans to hike loan disbursements to developers

MUMBAI, SEPT 2:

LIC Housing Finance, a subsidiary of Life Insurance Corporation of India, plans to disburse around 8-10 per cent of its total loan portfolio to developers by the end of this fiscal.

“Presently, around six per cent of our total loan portfolio constitutes developer loan. We plan to increase it to 8-10 per cent in the current financial year,” Director and Chief Executive Officer of LIC Housing Finance V.K. Sharma told PTI over the week-end.

He, however, said the housing finance firm would not aggressively push this portfolio in this fiscal though there is an uptick in loan disbursements to developers.

By the end of June quarter, LIC Housing Finance's outstanding loan portfolio was at around Rs 65,650 crore, which was a 24 per cent growth over the same period last year.

While individual loans constituted 94-95 per cent of the portfolio, developer loans comprised 5-6 per cent of the total amount.

Margins under pressure

Earlier, the housing finance company had said that low developer loan portfolio had put the margins under pressure and higher disbursals would increase the margin level.

Sharma also said respite in interest rates is necessary to boost the overall housing finance industry and to reduce the cost of borrowing for the housing finance companies.

Talking about the overall growth projection, he said,” Overall growth in loan portfolio is likely to be around 20 percent in the current financial year,” he said.

Asset quality of NBFCs

He also said there is no concern on the asset quality of NBFCs.

“There is no concern on the asset quality front. We have a total NPA of only around Rs 400 crore,” he said.

Sharma, however, said that the real estate sector was not growing in the country with subdued activity in metro centres like Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.

“Growth is pretty subdued in the metro centres like Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. However, there is a demand in tier-II and tier-III cities,” he said.

Q1 performance

LIC Housing Finance posted a 11 per cent drop in its net profit to Rs 228 crore in the first quarter of current financial year on the back of higher interest cost.

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