Indiabulls Housing Finance has reported a 25 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 751 crore for the December quarter and said it has not been affected by the note-ban at all.
The leading standalone mortgage player also crossed the Rs 1 trillion balancesheet milestone during the quarter on the back of a healthy loan book growth of 30 per cent.
“Our loan book clipped at 30 per cent, driven primarily by the affordable housing sector loans, registering a net growth of a little above Rs 6,000 crore during the quarter as we did not see any impact of the note ban which dominated most of the reporting period,” company Vice-Chairman and Managing Director Gagan Banga told PTI in a concall.
This is in sharp contrast to the banking sector which saw a massive contraction in their lending business following the note ban. According to Crisil data, while public sector banks saw their loan book shrinking by a negative 15 per cent, their private sector peers saw this at a negative 11 per cent.
He said the company has crossed the Rs 1 trillion balance sheet milestone during the quarter at Rs 1,02,406 crore and expressed the hope they will be able to better the Q3 showing in the March quarter by an incremental loan growth of Rs 10,000 crore.
In the December quarter, disbursals rose by Rs 9,000 crore, Banga said, adding they have set a target of crossing the Rs 1.5—trillion milestone by 2018—19.
“We plan to add at least Rs 25,000 crore incrementally to our balancesheet annually over in next two years.”
Describing the December quarter profit as the highest ever at Rs 751 crore, which was up 24.7 per cent, Banga said this was boosted by a 30 per cent growth in the net interest income at Rs 1,261 crore.
Profitability was also helped by a fall in the cost— to—income which dropped to 13.8 per cent from 14.3 per cent, while the credit cost remained stable at 74 bps of loan assets, which is within the guided range of 70—80 bps for the full year.
Despite challenging market conditions, the company could maintain stable asset quality as its gross NPA and net NPA stood stable at 0.85 per cent and 0.36 per cent respectively during the quarter.
Historically, most of the bad loans for the company has been coming in from commercial property side, which was the case in the reporting quarter as well, he said.
Almost 60 per cent of the loan book is retail home loans, and the rest is equally spilt between loan against property (LPA) and commercial properties, Banga said.
From within the retail loan book, as much as 85 per cent are affordable home loans and the average ticket size is only Rs 2,500,0000, Banga added.
Banga also discounted a rating agency report during the quarter warning a bubble in the LAP market, saying his LAP book is fully functional.
He said their ‘smart city home Loan’ branches opened in 10 cities has contributed Rs 80 crore during the quarter on a monthly basis which is around 8 per cent its incremental loan growth and expects this to go up to 15 per cent in the next three years.
He expects the Finance Minister to increase the tax sops on home loan borrowers to give a further leg—up to the affordable home loan market.
“The affordable housing segment has received tremendous boost under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and the ’housing for all’ mission. Rate cuts, tax deduction benefits and interest subsidies have made the EMI smaller than the rent cheque,” Banga said
