ICICI Bank may cut home loan rates in Q1 FY'09

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Home loan consumers in India may get some good news in the months to come with country's biggest private lender ICICI Bank saying it could cut interest rates in the first quarter of next fiscal.

Lower rates would not be only for new customers, but existing floating-rate clients also, ICICI Bank's Managing Director and CEO K V Kamath said.

"We expect the (interest) rates to drop in the first quarter. After that we will see if we can write down the rates (for our customers)," Kamath said when asked if ICICI Bank would cut housing loan rates.

The bank is also looking to start risk-based pricing, under which it would start offering lower rates to consumers with better creditworthiness, in about two years, he said.

However, any rate cut for consumers, who have had to reel under a number of interest rate hikes in the current fiscal, would depend on benchmark interest rate trends developing over the coming months.

Ruling out any possibility of interest rates firming up in the near future, the ICICI bank chief said, "I do not foresee an immediate increase in home loan rates. To me that is a good news. At least, you are able to contain the rates."

Stating that the job of a banker also involves bringing down the rates, Kamath said, "We will have to ride out this quarter. Every bank would have to ride out this quarter.

Because the last quarter of a year is the quarter when things go haywire. Then you expect the first quarter of the next year to correct."