Deutsche Bank to boost mortgage book

Deutsche Bank plans to nearly double its mortgage book in India to Rs 3,000 crore by the end of next year. The move is in line with the bank's strategy to maintain its focus on secured assets, following the sale of its credit cards business earlier this year.

The mortgage book, which is currently estimated at Rs 1,800 crore, comprises Rs 1,450 crore of home loans and Rs 350 crore of loans against property. Deutsche Bank currently lends Rs 80 crore of these loans every month. The average size of the loans is in the range of Rs 70-75 lakh.

“We have started setting up more distribution points and adding capacity in our sales force. We expect our mortgage book to nearly double by the end of the next year,” said Prashant Joshi, managing director and head (private and business clients), Deutsche Bank, India.

The foreign lender currently employs 18 sales managers and around 100 agents. Besides ramping up its sales force, the bank plans to offer value-added services like life insurance cover, along with housing loans, to draw customers. It also plans to reduce the processing time for sanctioning these loans to three days, from the current one-week period.

The expansion of the bank's mortgage book would also allow it to cross-sale its banking products to home loan customers.

Senior officials at Deutsche Bank said the lender was exploring options like securitising a part of its mortgage book and availing refinancing from the National Housing Bank to ensure there was no mismatch between its assets and liabilities. However, the bank has no plans to launch a dual-rate housing loan product, re-introduced by many of its domestic rivals last month.

“We don't have plans to launch a dual rate housing loan product as of now. I think there is a need for fixed-rate products, but people would prefer that only if the tenure is longer,” Joshi said.