ICICI Home Finance sees credit growth to fall in FY08

NEW DELHI: ICICI Home Finance, a unit of the country's biggest private bank, expects its credit growth to decline by almost half this fiscal after higher interest rates forced people to defer purchase of houses. "The credit growth for the (current) fiscal is likely to be in the range of 10-15 per cent as against 20-25 per cent growth attained in the previous fiscal," Sunil Rohokale, ICICI Home Finance's Managing Director and CEO said. The company had achieved a credit growth close to 25 per cent in the past fiscal, Rohokale said, adding that a likely slowdown in the country's credit market might reflect in the bank's credit growth as well. "We expect a margin in line with the industrial growth," he said on the sidelines of a seminar. Many people have postponed their decision to buy a house as almost all banks kept interest rates high throughout 2007 after the Reserve Bank increased benchmark rates to tighten money supply to check inflation and prevent overheating. Rohokale said interest rates were likely to remain steady in the months ahead. "It looks like rates will remain steady in the current fiscal. It may even go downward," he said. Started in 1999, ICICI Home Finance is a wholly-owned subsidiary of ICICI Bank and has clients in over 150 cities. Earlier, while speaking at the seminar, Rohokale welcomed National Housing Bank's efforts to create Residex, an index of residential property prices in the country. NHB had launched Residex last year, comprising data related to prices in Delhi, Bangalore, Bhopal, Kolkata and Mumbai.