Housing loans to get cheaper, company to raise Rs 3,600 cr this year: Sundaram Home Fin MD

The reduction in its prime lending rate (PLR) on housing and non-housing loans for all customers, existing as well as new, is effective from Monday and available on variable rates of interest.

“The reduction in lending rates is in line with the current interest rate in the market,” Srinivas Acharya, MD, Sundaram Home Finance told DTNext, while noting that the company is hopeful that the Centre’s favourable proposals in the recent budget for the housing sector would improve the home buying sentiments and drive demand in the realty space. He shares insights on the business and the near term plans, which are highlighted below:

We have not been affected by the liquidity crisis in any way this year. In fact, we are comfortably placed in terms of our fund raising plans for the year. Our cost of funds did go up in Q3 and Q4 of last year but we were comfortable in terms of raising the funds we required last year as part of our growth plans. We are confident of picking our share in the available business in the home finance space.

On fund raising and expansion plans

We are looking to raise Rs 3,600 cr this year and are confident that we will be able to meet our funding requirements. Public Deposits is an integral part of our funding mix and we have a deposit base of over Rs 1,300 cr. We will also be raising funds through term loans from banks, long term funding from NHB and through debentures.

There are a number of tier two locations in the south that remain untapped. We will explore expanding in those areas. In addition, as part of our national expansion, we will continue to increase our presence in the western and eastern parts of the country, where we had forayed a few years ago.

We have been focusing on the affordable housing segment in the last few years and have registered a sizeable share of the business in this space. We will continue to target the salaried segment while we expand our presence in the affordable housing segment and newer areas. With the aggressive intent shown by the Centre in terms of promoting and developing this segment, we will continue to tap into this segment in the coming years.

Sundaram Home clocked a net profit of Rs 145 cr for the year ended March 31, 2019. The company has over 100 branches spread across the country and over 50,000 customers.