Central Bank looks at 25% growth in home loans

As part of its retail expansion plan, state-run Central Bank of India is planning to grow its home loan book by 25 per cent by the end of the current financial year. 

“Currently, our home loan portfolio is about Rs 8,000 crore and we want to grow it by another Rs 2,000 crore by end of March,” its Chairman and Managing Director S Sridhar said on the sidelines of a press conference to launch the retail sale of gold coins.

The bank is currently setting up a centralised retail loan processing unit which Sridhar expects to be completed very soon.

Currently, home loan constituted 8 per cent of its loan book, which was expected to be at 9-9.5 per cent by the end of 2009-10, Sridhar said.

The bank is also planning to grow its entire retail loan from the next financial year.

Currently, retail loans constituted 16 per cent of its total loan book and the proportion would go up from 2010-11, Sridhar said. He, however, declined to give any target for retail loan growth.

The state-run bank is planning to sell significant portion of its non-performing assets in the current financial year.

"Last year, we tried to sell some of our NPAs but the deal did not go through. This year, we hope to sell a significant chunk of our bad loans," he said. 

The gross NPA of the bank is about Rs 2,200 core and net NPA at Rs 700 crore.

Sridhar also said the bank recorded a nine per cent loan growth as on September 30, over March 31. As on end-September, the loan portfolio of the bank stood at Rs 92,000 crore.