Aspire Home Finance Corp. Ltd., (AHFCL) has opened 32 branches in six States to disburse low-cost housing finance to lower and middle-income groups, an official said. A subsidiary of Motilal Oswal Securities Ltd., AHFCL offers home loans, plot loans, composite loans, home improvement loans, home extension loans and Mahila Awas loans for periods ranging from 5 to 20 years. The average loan size is ₹10 lakh. “Over 95% housing shortage in India is due to demand-supply mismatch in low-cost and affordable housing,” said Anil Sachidanand, AHFCL Managing Director and CEO. “It is here we come in to aggressively meet the housing finance needs of lower and middle income groups. Our interest rates will be slightly higher than nationalised banks, but lower than private firms.” Categorised as a Primary Lending Institution under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, AHFCL over the last 32 months, has served more than 36,000 families spread across Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Telangana. Over the last few days, AHFCL opened branches in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, taking the total number of branches to 115. A decision on entering Kerala and eastern parts of the country will be taken by the board during the next fiscal, he said. “Till date, we have disbursed ₹3,600 crore to 36,000 Indian families. The loan size will increase to ₹4,400 crore by March, covering 44,000 customers. Over the next two years, we would like to have a loan book of ₹10,000 crore servicing one lakh families,” he said. “In Tamil Nadu, we are planning to extend housing loan to 600 customers and plans to add 6,000 customers next fiscal. We will follow a hub and spoke model and offer our services in Vellore, Kancheepuram, Trichy, Erode, Salem, Coimbatore, Tirunelveli and Madurai. To minimize the turn around time of loan application processing, we have completely digitalised it,” he said. — N. Anand
