Among all scheduled commercial banks, SBI share in the home loan segment is around 34 per cent. It is offering an interest rate on home loans starting from 6.80 per cent.
“We have crossed the Rs 5 lakh crore mark. This is a journey which we have covered in almost from 2011 to 2021. So in about 10 years’ time, we have built this book from about Rs 89,000 crore to Rs 5 lakh crore,” the bank’s chairman Dinesh Khara told reporters.
Around 51 per cent of the lender’s home loan customers belong to urban, semi-urban and rural areas, and the balance 49 per cent are from metros, he said.
When asked how soon the bank will achieve the next Rs 5 lakh crore target in home loans, Khara said the time taken would be much lesser.
“When it comes to our next target, we are aiming for a target of about Rs 7 lakh crore in around three years’ time and maybe Rs 10 lakh crore by another five years’ time,” he said.
Home loan demand is a function of the economy and the demographics, and there is definitely a change in that, with the younger generation wanting to buy a home at a much younger age as compared to 10 years earlier, he added.
“We have observed that 42 per cent of our home loan customers are from the age bracket of below 40 years.
“I feel that going forward we will see a much greater shift in this direction and the increase in earnings of the younger generation, their aspirations and the concept of the nuclear family are going to be the contributing reasons for people to apply for homes at an early age,” Khara noted.
The gross non-performing assets (NPAs) in the home loan segment is 0.67-0.68 per cent, he said.
Khara said that out of about 39 lakh-odd borrowers who were eligible to be considered under the RBI’s one-time restructuring plan, only about 10,000 customers have availed the restructuring option, which is aggregating to about Rs 2,500 crore.
“So, if we look at a book size of Rs 5 lakh crore, out of that only Rs 2,500 crore has been put through restructuring,” he said while explaining about the quality of the home loan book.
About 72 per cent of our customers are in the salaried bracket and all of them are in a position to honour their commitments pretty well, he noted.
Of the Rs 5 lakh crore home loan book, takeover loans constitute around 23 per cent.
For all builder tie-ups, the turnaround time for approving a home loan is around five days, while in other cases the time taken in 12 days, he said.
“We are strengthening our system. The new retail loan management system is being put in place, which will certainly reduce the time taken,” he said, adding the lender is trying to approve more and more builders so that it can further reduce the turnaround time to 5 days from 12 days at present.
The lender’s managing director (retail & digital banking) CS Setty said the bank is trying to move approval for home loans where builder tie-ups are there to Yono platform.
“The customer can directly come and start his journey on Yono platform itself so that even the 5-day turnaround time can be further brought down. Pre-approval can be given in 5-10 mins under Yono itself,” he said, adding the customer can later go to the bank branch and complete the documentation.
The lender is also the only bank designated by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MoHUA) as the Central Nodal Agency (CNA) for processing Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) subsidy.
Around two lakh home loans have been sanctioned under PMAY, the bank said.
