After winding up their teaser and discounted home loan schemes, banks and housing finance companies, which have raised their lending rates are charting out new strategies to expand their home loan portfolios. Barring the State Bank of India, others discontinued special home loan schemes since January 2011.
Says B K Mahendru, deputy general manager, retail assets, Punjab National Bank (PNB), ?We are currently concentrating on faster and adequate delivery of loans. For a home loan customer, efficient delivery mechanism is of prime importance than marginal variation of interest rates. We have appointed one customer verification agent each for our 75 retail asset branches.?
These agents will verify credentials like income tax statement and address of the borrower. Those details were earlier done by our branch staff, who now can devote more time in hastening the process for loan sanctions, even earlier than seven days, said Mahendru.
The bank typically sanctions a home loan in seven to fifteen days time. The lender which according to a source generated Rs 2,000 crore business through its teaser loan scheme, is primarily focusing on two schemes for home loan: flexibility home loan scheme and home loan with overdraft facility.
Under the flexibility scheme, the bank provides 20% of the loan amount in the current account format wherein a customer can withdraw money as and when required and interest will be charged only on the reduced daily balance. PNB allows a Rs 5 lakh overdraft limit in addition to the granted home loan amount. A borrower, who may be in requirement of additional money for his new home, can avail this facility to serve his purpose. The bank is also marketing those products aggressively in smaller towns and cities.
Observes Keki Mistry, vice chairman and CEO HDFC, ?We are not worried about SBI?s decision to continue teaser scheme as it is not likely to affect our business much. In teaser loans, the interest rates are lower only for the first two years and then they go upwards. So, the customers will not get attracted by it. Hence we are sure to achieve our business target through quality service.?
According to R Sampath, general manager Bank of India (BoI), the bank is planning to tie up with four to five builders so that when customers approach it for home loans, the turn around time comes down to five to six days from seven to ten days as the title deeds for the new homes also need not to be examined.
The bank is trying to fund builders for their specific townships. ?We have tied up with Bangalore-based Mantri Developers for one township in Hyderabad. For similar reasons, we have tied up with Mumbai-based Hiranandani Developers and three other developers in Chandigarh and one in New Delhi.? It will help sell home loans through those townships, Sampath said.