Indiabulls Housing Finance, the second-largest housing finance company in the country, is putting together an Artificial Intelligence system to power home loan offerings to its salaried customers, a top official said.

This company is betting big on automation to increase its market share and reach its target customer segment, of those with ₹10-15 lakh annual income, especially in Tier 2 and 3 towns.

“Seventy per cent of our home loan customers are salaried. With AI powered analysis to decide eligibility, we expect 30 per cent of our salaried customers to get automated approvals down the line,” Sachin Chaudhary, Chief Operating Officer (COO), Indiabulls Housing Finance, told BusinessLine .

By October, Indiabulls Housing Finance also plans to launch a “paperless home loan product” for its customers. From application to home loan sanction, to developers providing title documents, everything will be automated and online, he said.

“We already have an e-mortgage product (for the last one-and-a-half years) where the sanction part is online. We plan to improve upon this and make the home loan experience truly paperless by onboarding the developers to provide the documents online to customers,” Chaudhary said.

The main issue is that developers should be in a position to provide the documents in soft copy and the company will ensure that all developers associated with it are able to deliver on this aspect, he added.

The emphasis on digital is expected to benefit in two important ways — the customer will get more convenience (geography, time do not matter and there will be faster turnaround), and the operating cost of the company will come down by 70-80 per cent.

Chaudhary expressed confidence that Indiabulls Housing Finance will be able to maintain 30 per cent growth in its overall loan book in the years to come. As of end-December 2017, this company had a balance sheet size of ₹1.22 lakh crore.

“We are confident of sustaining this 30 per cent growth, at least for the next 10-15 years. Nobody is going to take this away. Today, housing is in a sweetspot and it will remain so for the next 15 years,” he said.

Chaudhary also said that the economy is supporting this kind of growth. The RBI and the government are providing enough and more support to housing finance, he said.

Asked if Indiabulls Housing will look at “inorganic growth”, Chaudhary replied in the negative.

“We are not looking for inorganic growth. Any opportunity coming in the market is something we can achieve through one quarter of hard work. Age is in our favour and the market is conducive; so we will love to have our own relationship grow in this market,” he said.

Post the recent upgrade to AAA by CRISIL, Indiabulls Housing Finance’s current borrowing cost is at 7.5 per cent.

Chaudhary also said that the company was comfortable on the capital front and was not under any compulsion to raise money to fund growth for the next two years.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW