LIC Housing to launch new fixed loan product by Jan end

LIC Housing Finance Limited (LIC HFL), a subsidiary of Life Insurance Corporation, is planning to launch a new fixed loan product by the end of January.

“The product is on the drawing board. It will be a full-term fixed-rate product, where the interest rate will be fixed at 10.4 per cent. The name of the product has not been decided,” VK Sharma, director and chief executive of LIC Housing Finance, said.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the company’s three-day property exhibition here on Friday, he said they expected the interest rate to come down in the near future after which the company would launch the product.

LIC Housing also plans to launch a Rs 200-crore VC fund, part of its proposed Rs 500-crore real estate venture capital (VC) fund for urban infrastructure development, in the beginning of January.

“We have tied up with 10-15 banks and financial institutions for this. The first closure will be announced in the beginning of January next year,” he said.

The company had proposed to launch the Rs 500-crore VC fund by January, but due to the volatile market condition, it was running behind schedule. “We don’t want to wait for another 2-3 months,” he added.

As of on Friday, LIC HFL’s total loan portfolio stands at Rs 56,000 crore, of which Rs 52,000 crore belongs to the individual retail sector. From this retail segment, Rs 48,000 crore comes from the end-user and the rest from investors.

“We specialise in the end-user segment, and 90 per cent of our business comes from this,” he said. Its products ‘New advantage 5’ and ‘Freedom’, which were launched during the September-October period, have garnered Rs 4,000 crore.