Expect robust demand going ahead, NPAs to remain stable: Can Fin Homes

Housing finance companies witnessed strong growth in 2021 on the back of robust demand for home loans. Girish Kousgi, MD and CEO of Can Fin Homes, believes the sentiment in the industry is extremely positive.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, he said that property prices are at their lowest, backed by low-interest rates, higher affordability, all of this coupled with economic activity picking up and adequate liquidity in the market, is contributing to the overall health and betterment of the industry.

On the overall sentiment, he said, “If you look at the sentiment, it is very positive. Economic activity is picking up, Affordability is at the highest, property prices are at the lowest, interest rates are also at the lowest, adequate liquidity, everything seems to be really good. "

Kousgi believes Omicron might not be something too worrying as the fatality rate is lower than the previous variants.

On demand, he said, “Demand is robust; Q3 has been extremely good for the entire industry and the trend would continue, notwithstanding Omicron. It’s going to be a dream run for the next few years.”

On restructured book, Kousgi said, “We estimate about 7 percent of the restructured book to flow into stage 3 in the quarters to come – that’s approximately about Rs 45 crore and against 45, we have provided Rs 65 crore.”

He added, "This apart, from the NPA pool, we plan to recover around 55-60 crores, so if you look at NPAs on an overall basis, I think it will be quite stable."

On loan growth, he said, “We will be able to close at about 18-20 percent growth going forward, both on book growth as well as on disbursement growth.”