George A Muthoot: Seeing good demand for gold loans; stress in housing and vehicle finance space

Muthoot Finance's third-quarter earnings beat the poll due to strong loan growth but the housing finance subsidiary sees all-round pressure.

“We have been able to do better than pre-COVID. During these COVID times, we were able to do better because we see good demand for gold loans and we were able to satisfy that demand. That is one of the reasons we have been able to do well,” George Alexander Muthoot, MD, Muthoot Finance said.

Muthoot also added, “There is competition, but nevertheless the market is expanding. So banks etc are getting newer customers but we are not seeing our customers going away from us.”

The average disbursal of loan to value is only about 69-70 percent, he said.

“From March to December we have grown by Rs 8,900 crore which is 22 percent growth. So I think we would like to revise our guidance for this year. We should be able to do about 25-26 percent by the end of this year,” Muthoot said.

In terms of the housing and finance vehicle segment, he mentioned, “Our non-gold loan portfolio was 13 percent at the start of the year and today it is only 10 percent. In the housing and vehicle finance, it is seeing a little stress in the market. In the next two-three quarters we will go slowly and then after that this will bounce back.”