PNB Housing Finance Ltd (PNBHFL) on Wednesday said that it has achieved milestone of growing its affordable housing loan book to ₹ 1,000 crore.
This is probably the fastest ₹ 1,000 crore asset under management by any affordable segment home loan provider, Girish Kousgi, MD and CEO, PNB Housing Finance, said here.
“There is a strong demand for affordable housing in the country, owing to the rapid rate of urbanisation, growing younger population, increasing per capita income and higher demand of housing units beyond the metro cities,” he said.
PNBHFL had, in the last one year, opened 100 branches dedicated for affordable housing. Looking at the potential, the company plans to add another 60 affordable housing focused branches before end March 2024. PNBHFL had launched its Loans for affordable housing in December last year.
The idea is to have about 297 branches (for the entire company) by end March 2024 including the 160 branches for affordable housing. Ticket size for affordable housing is about ₹ 13 lakhs.
“We have big plans for affordable housing. In next 4-5 years. We plan to have a mix of 60 per cent on prime and 40 per cent on affordable in the overall retail book. Affordable will give us margins and prime will give us growth”, he said.
On an overall basis, PNBHFL is eyeing an overall loan book of ₹ 1-lakh crore in next 4-5 years. Currently, the overall loan book for the company is over ₹ 60,000 crore, Kousgi said.
Going forward, PNBHFL wants to position itself as Retail driven mortgage housing finance company. Kousgi said that the company plans to restart corporate lending.
At a book level in next 4-5 years, the company wants retail to account for 90 percent and corporate being less than 10 percent.