Fullerton India to float housing finance company

Leading non-banking financial company (NBFC) Fullerton India Credit Company Ltd, a fully owned subsidiary of Singapore-based Fullerton Financial Holdings, has decided to float a housing finance company by November this year.

Through this company, Fullerton would add housing loan portfolio to its suite of products that includes personal loans, business loans, SME (small & medium enterprises) loans and loans for rural livelihoods.

"We have got the license from National Housing Board to form a company for housing finance. The company would be a fully owned subsidiary of Fullerton India Ltd. The company would be floated with a paid-up equity of Rs 100 crore", said Rakesh Makkar, executive vice president and head (business, marketing and CSR) at Fullerton India.

With 445 branches across the country covering 42,000 villages and 600 towns, Fullerton has assets under management (AUM) of Rs 9,000 crore (as on March 31, 2015). It hopes the AUM to grow by 30-35 per cent in the current fiscal. About 20 per cent of its business comes from the rural areas. Fullerton India has a capital adequacy ratio of 19.6.

"In the SME segment, Fullerton is logging year-on-year growth of 30-40 per cent. We provide SME loans of up to Rs 25 crore", said Makkar.

Every month, we are disbursing loans of around Rs 700 crore and have1.1 million customers, he said.

"In Odisha, we are disbursing loans of Rs two to three crore every month. We have a presence in three cities- Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Rourkela where we serve a total of 1,300 customers. We have now launched our secured business in the state where we would offer loans against property. By the end of this fiscal, our customer base is poised to expand to over 7,000," he said.

Fullerton India raises 50 per cent of its funds from commercial banks and the rest from non-convertible debentures (NCDs) and commercial papers.