MUMBAI: ICICI Bank Ltd has emerged as the largest private bank offering home loans, having crossed the Rs 1.5 lakh crore mark.
The bank, which recently saw a senior management shuffle amid allegations of questionable corporate governance practices, is now targeting a 15 per cent growth, taking the home loan book to Rs 2 lakh crore by the financial year 2020.
Currently, home loans comprise half of the bank’s overall retail loan portfolio of around Rs 3 lakh crore.
“We are not only the largest private sector bank but also the largest mortgage player among our peers,” Anup Bagchi, executive director, ICICI Bank, told reporters via conference call here Tuesday.
In order to hit the target, the bank will aggressively pursue both digitisation and physical expansion. While ICICI will increase loan processing centres by 50 per cent from the current 1,050, on the digital front, it will strengthen its online repository of 30,000 approved projects across 40 cities, besides facilitating developers to gain approvals online.
“We are expanding our network to many new locations in Tier II and III cities, as well as micro-markets on the periphery of the major metros and continue to leverage on technology to offer home loans in a fully digitised manner,” Bagchi said.
He also dismissed concerns about the asset quality. It was one of the lowest in the industry, not just for home loans, but also for its mortgage portfolio, which includes loan against property.
It may be noted that ICICI Bank, its CEO & MD Chanda Kochhar and some board members are under the scanner by multiple Central agencies including SEBI, CBI and RBI, for alleged wrongdoings in extending loans. Kochhar was asked to go on indefinite leave until the bank-initiated independent probe is over.
The bank has appointed Sandeep Bakhshi as its COO, besides roping in former bureaucrat Gireesh Chaturvedi as its part-time chairman.
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