MUMBAI: At Rs 1.5 trillion, the mortgage loan-book of ICICI Bank is half of the bank’s overall retail loan portfolio of around Rs three trillion, the bank has said. “We are not only the largest private sector bank but also the largest mortgage player among our peers with an Rs 1.5-trillion loan book. We hope to grow this to Rs two trillion, clipping annually at 15 per cent by FY20,” said Anup Bagchi, executive director, ICICI Bank. He further said that the mortgage book was half of its Rs three trillion retail assets, which constitute 52 per cent of its total assets of USD 172.5 billion.
Basing his optimism of clocking higher growth on the back of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Bagchi said most of the growth was coming in from tier-2 and tier-3 towns, as the average ticket size was only a tad above Rs 30 lakhs. When asked about the assets quality, he said there was nothing to worry on this front and without quantifying, claimed it to be one of the lowest in the industry. “In fact, our mortgage portfolio, which includes loan against property (LAP) also, has very low credit cost,” he said, adding that in the LAP segment, it was given against cash flow and other collaterals, as well.
To achieve the projected Rs two trillion target over the next two years, the bank is also aggressively pushing its digitization drive in the mortgage eco-system. Under this, the bank has enabled developers to obtain approvals for their projects online, which has seen the bank approving 2,000 new housing projects, fully online. It has also enabled an online repository of 30,000 approved projects, across 40 cities.
On the physical front, the bank will add 50 per cent more loan processing centers from the present 1,050, Bagchi said. “We are expanding our network to many new locations in tier-2 and tier-3 towns, as well as micro-markets on the periphery of major metros and continue to leverage on technology, to offer home loans in a fully digitized manner,” he said. ICICI Bank has been under probe by multiple central agencies since March 2018, for alleged wrongdoings in extending loan to now-bankrupt Videocon Croup by its managing director Chanda Kochhar, who has since been asked to go on leave till the probe is over. PTI
