Bankers feel the heat as home loan queries fall

There is a slump in the market and its direct impact can be seen on the housing loans section of different banking divisions. According to many officials in the home loans divisions, the walk-in and enquiries have gone down by 50 per cent in many places.

One of the officials with Corporation Bank said that there is a major slump in the housing loans enquiries and even the walk-ins have reduced. "The property market has been affected badly because of various reasons resulting which the home loan divisions has been affected," said the official.

Apart from reasons like inflation and rise in home loan rates, another reason is that the affordability has also gone down said another official from HDFC home loans. He added that the enquiries and final confirmation is not as same as those that were there in the last few weeks. "When the property market had been good about three weeks back the walk-in had been much better as compared to the scene now," he said adding that on a positive note one also feels that probably the increasing competition in the home loan market is one of the reasons for this fall.

Avers an official from Reliance Capital who said that there is a fall in enquiries but the change is marginal. "There is probably a 30 per cent fall as compared to the last few weeks," he said adding that enquiries cannot be a basis as people have now become net savvy and can get all the details over the world wide web. "There is no need for most of them to visit the bank and it is only the final stages when they come for loan and that has fallen in the last few weeks. Where there were 15 forms about few weeks back filled confirming the loan, now it has become 10 forms," said the Reliance Capital official.

HDFC Bank drops on hike in lending rate

The bank made this announcement after trading hours on Friday, 20 June 2007.

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 146.44 points, or 1.01%, to 14,424.32.

On BSE, 30,346 shares were traded in the counter. The scrip had an average daily volume of 1.1 lakh shares in the past one quarter.

The stock hit a high of Rs 1,100.05 and a low of Rs 1,075 so far during the day. The stock had a 52-week high of Rs 1,825 on 14 January 2008 and a 52 week low of 1,050.30 on 17 August 2007.

India’s second largest private sector bank in terms of net profit had underperformed the market over the past one month till 20 June 2008, declining 20.36% compared to the Sensex’s decline of 13.82%. It had also underperformed the market in the past one quarter, declining 13.47% compared to Sensex’s fall of 2.82%.

The bank has an equity capital of Rs 354.73 crore. Face value per share is Rs 5.

The current price of Rs 1,087.50 discounts its Q4 March 2008 annualised EPS of Rs 53.17, by a PE multiple of 20.45.

The HDFC bank has also upped its deposit rates by 25 basis points across different tenures. The hikes come into effect from 18 June 2008.

Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday, 11 June 2008, hiked repo rate by 25 basis points to 8% with immediate effect in an effort to contain rising inflation. The repo rate is the rate at which Reserve Bank of India (RBI) lends money to banks under its liquidity adjustment facility. The repo rate increase was announced after market hours on Wednesday (11 June 2008) and came outside a scheduled policy review. The repo rate is now at its highest since November 2002.

As per reports, several banks are reviewing their interest rate structures and are expected to take a call soon on whether to raise their rates or not.

HDFC Bank’s net profit rose 37.1% to Rs 471.11 crore on 51% rise in operating income to Rs 3,505.52 crore in Q4 March 2008 over Q4 March 2007.

HDFC Bank is one of the leading private sector banks in India.

Markets recover; HDFC Bank up 5.3%

Markets are trading firm in the noon deals of Tuesday with the benchmark index Sensex gaining 164 points or 1.1 per cent. It is trading at 15,560 levels.

Broader market index Nifty also gained 36 points or 0.8 per cent and it is trading at 4608 levels.

“Markets are moving in line with crude movement and I expect it to be range bound in the coming days. We are witnessed huge selling on rise. I won’t advice sugar stocks at the current levels,” said Sandeep Wagle, Chief Technical Analyst, Angel Broking.

Buying is evident in realty, capital goods, IT and banking stocks by over 0.4 per cent each.

Other Asian markets are trading weak on Tuesday. South Korea's Kospi and Japan's Nikkei are trading in red territory by over 0.4 per cent each.

HDFC Bank at Rs 1211 jumped 5.3 per cent or Rs 60 and it is the biggest gainer among the BSE-30 scrips. Other major gainers in this pack are Housing Development Finance, State Bank of India and L&T.

HDFC bank expanding its network in Valley

Emerging as the fast growing private sector bank in the valley since its operation in the valley, HDFC bank is expanding its network with setting up of four new branches and on and off site ATMs this month. Starting its operation in 2005 in the valley, the bank has achieved a clientele of more than 20,000 in just two branches.The Bank is expected to increase its customer base with the opening of four branches within next two months. Off site ATM is also being introduced at the Airport Road, Srinagar. Zubair Iqbal, Assistant vice president Jammu and Kashmir and north Punjab told Etalaat that growing response of the people towards the products and services of the Bank has led to the creation of more branches across valley .He said that three new branches at Islamabad, Sopore and Maharaj Gunj will start functioning from the third week of this month while another branch at Karan Nagar will be functional in August this year.

“The response we have received during last 4 years shows that people are satisfied with our products and services. In order to broaden our reach in valley we have decided to set up four more branches , two in Srinagar and one each in north and south Kashmir,” Iqbal said.
“We are expecting a good response from the new branches as people from Sopore and Islamabad are approaching us and expressing their desire to open accounts,” he said, adding the new branches will have on spot ATMs for the convenience of its customers.

Iqbal said that bank is also introducing off site ATMs at hyderpora, airport road for the convenience of the customers. He said that HDFC is the only bank in valley that has tie- up with asset management companies (AMCs) and is authorized to sell their products and services.

“We are the first bank to introduce net banking and mutual fund investments in valley. We are also authorized to sell the products and services of AMCs,” He added.
With the expansion of the network, the total number of branches of the bank in the Valley will go upto seven. Presently the bank has two branches, one at Residency Road and another at Hari Singh high Street with three on site ATMs. The Bank is expected to have fifteen branches in the Valley by 2009.

In 2007 HDFC Bank acquired Centurion Bank of Punjab taking its total branches to more than 1,200. Though, the official license was given to Centurion Bank of Punjab branches, to continue working as HDFC Bank branches, on May 23, 2008.

“We have acquired Centurion Bank of Punjab and from May 23 last month, their branches have started operating by the title of HDFC,” Iqbal said.