National Housing Bank (NHB) has slashed its prime lending rate by 50 basis points from 10.5 per cent to 10 per cent, R.V. Verma, Chairman & Managing Director said.

This move will spur demand for housing loans as it would make retail home loans more affordable, Verma told Business Line here.

It will directly benefit all floating rate loans linked to PLR, he added. NHB refinances housing finance companies on their retail home loans.

Meanwhile, NHB has reported a net profit of Rs 387 crore for the financial year ended June 2012.

This represents a 39 per cent increase over the net profit of Rs 279 crore recorded in the previous financial year.

For the year under review, NHB had disbursed loans to the tune of Rs 14,464 crore, which is a 22 per cent increase over 12,035 crore in the previous year.

> srivats.kr@thehindu.co.in

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