Amidst high demand for home loans, ICICI Bank on Wednesday said its mortgage loan portfolio has crossed the milestone of ₹2-lakh crore mark with October registering the highest disbursements.

“It took us four years to reach ₹2-lakh crore from ₹1-lakh crore. We hope it will take us less than four years to move to ₹3-lakh crore,” said Anup Bagchi, Executive Director, ICICI Bank, adding that its market share is also improving.

ICICI Bank had in the second quarter results that mortgage disbursements during the September quarter surpassed the pre-Covid levels and reached an all-time monthly high in September.

Ravi Narayanan, Head-Secured Assets, ICICI Bank, said, “The disbursements in October were even higher than September. October witnessed highest ever mortgage disbursement.”

ALSO READICICI Bank launches bankingstack for millennial customers

In an interaction with reporters, Bagchi said customers have also moved from large housing finance companies to banks. Many HFCs have not passed on the benefit of lower rates to old customers.

The bank has expanded its footprint anticipating demand for home loans, he said. “Now, we are present in 1,100 locations, including tier 2, 3 and 4 cities as well as fast-growing outskirts of metro cities. We have also scaled-up our credit processing centres from around 170 to over 200 in past two years in these new markets for efficient processing and quick turn-around for customers,” Bagchi said.

Home loans

Distribution, digitisation, and affordability have been drivers of growth for home loans.

“The achievement can be attributed to ICICI Bank’s focus on offering a hassle free and frictionless experience to customers by digitising the entire mortgage process along with instant loan approvals. The growth was also aided by the Bank’s expansion of footprint far and wide across the country including tier 2, 3 and 4 cities,” the private sector lender said in a statement.

ALSO READICICI Bank shares jump nearly 6 per cent as Q2 profit zooms to record high

Bagchi said it is not sure what amount of the growth is pent-up demand and what is long term sustainable demand.

But all parameters are now stabilising, he said, adding that the bank’s internal metrics indicated that the overall economy has come back to 94 per cent of pre Covid levels.

“People are not as impacted and hopefully it will improve further. Parameters are looking reasonably healthy,” he said.

The bank has also prepared a virtual exhibition platform that provides customers access to nearly 41,600 approved real estate projects, eliminating the need to visit the site.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW