Home loan delinquencies more than halve in last 5 yrs: Cibil

The largest credit information company Cibil has said the proportion of bad loans in the housing segment has more than halved in the past five years.
The percentage of non-performing assets (NPAs) from the home loans segment has dropped to 0.57 in March 2015 compared to 1.06 at the end of 2010, it said in a report.
The company attributed the lower delinquencies to availability of timely credit information for lending.
It can be noted that all the lenders check the previous history of potential borrowers with a credit information company like Cibil before taking a call on the loan proposal. The past history also helps the lenders in pricing the product.

The Cibil report said Mumbai and Pune account for most such enquiries from banks for availing the details of potential borrowers, which is followed by Delhi and Bengaluru.
It said 3.9 lakh new home loan accounts were opened in the January-March quarter of this year.

It can be noted that in the face of slowing demand from the corporate segment, all banks have been focusing strongly on the retail segment, and within that the high value home loans have been a favourite.
Even though a longer tenure loan can result in potential asset liability mismatches, banks are interested in this stream as the segment is considered very safe because of the low probability of NPA.

On credit cards, which constitute a part of unsecured lending, the Cibil report said there was a growth in new accounts to 10.8 lakh for the January-March period, as against 8 lakh in the year-ago period.
On the asset quality in this segment, Cibil said there has been an improvement to 1.06 per cent as of March 2015 as against 3.27 per cent at the end of 2010.
The financial capital leads in the credit card applications as well, followed by Delhi and Bengaluru, it said.