Indiabulls Housing, HDFC ink pact for co-lending to offer housing loans at competitive rates

Indiabulls Housing Finance (IBH) and mortgage lender HDFC Ltd have entered into a strategic co-lending partnership to offer housing loans at competitive rates. IBH will originate retail home loans as per jointly drawn up credit policy and retain 20 per cent of the loan in its books, and 80 per cent will be on HDFC books, Indiabulls Housing said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday.

Indiabulls Housing will originate and process retail home loans as per jointly formulated credit parameters and eligibility criteria, HDFC Ltd said in another filing. The loans will be offered at a 7-8 per cent prime lending rate. IBH will service the loan account throughout the life cycle of the loan. The co-lending partnership with HDFC Ltd will act as a cornerstone to IBH’s new balance-sheet light growth business model, Indiabulls Housing said. “The Corporation will have 80 per cent of the total loan in its books and its share of every loan will be approved by the Corporation. Indiabulls HFL will service the loan account throughout the life cycle of the loan,” HDFC said.

The technology-led co-lending is expected to help both the companies to offer a convenient and seamless experience to its customers as well as help expand their reach to tier III and IV cities in India, the country’s largest mortgage lender said. HDFC Ltd is the market leader in the housing finance industry in India with assets under management of over Rs 5.52 lakh crore at December-end 2020. It is a gold-standard financial services company and is rated at the highest long term rating of AAA by CRISIL, ICRA and CARE Ratings.

In November last year, the Reserve Bank came out with a Co-Lending Model (CLM) scheme, under which banks can provide loans along with NBFCs to priority sector borrowers based on a prior agreement. CLM is an improvement over the co-origination of the loan scheme announced by the RBI in September 2018 to provide greater flexibility to the lending institutions.