India’s Top 500 Companies 2019

INDIA’S TOP 500 COMPANIES 2019 107 Experts’ View an enhanced user experience, improved navigation, etc. • HDFC launched its first mobile application ‘HDFC Home Loans’. The app is designed to cater to the unique requirements of home loan customers. Also HDFC was amongst the first in Indian mortgage industry to offer an instant online e-approval for a Home Loan. • To make home loans more hassle- free as mentioned above HDFC has tied up home loan products through Financial Institutions having pan-India presence. These FIs just source business for HDFC while the underwriting and credit controls remain with HDFC, thus ensuring wider reach coupled with quality of portfolio is being maintained. Facilities such as mobile Apps, Loans at the doorstep do make the home loan experience hassle-free, but I think most important is ‘counselling’ as buying a house is a biggest investment one makes in their life time and hence the approach should be cautious and well calculated rather than Instant. How do you plan to capture the next phase of growth in the economy? The next phase of growth in housing will come from affordable housing. HDFC in order to promote affordable housing has created dedicated teams across the country. In the last couple of months these teams have conducted extensive workshops to educate developers and their sales staff, employees of corporate, etc by setting up help desks at their offices. HDFC’s efforts were recently recognized with a special CLSS award by the Government of India. This is one small step towards “Housing for all by 2022” which HDFC Ltd has been working on as a mission and business objective to take the government’s flagship scheme, ‘Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY)’ to the real beneficiaries. Accordingly in terms of the government’s Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS), HDFC has cumulatively disbursed ` 11,297 crore loans to first- time home buyers belonging to the EWS/LIG and middle-income groups. The cumulative subsidy stood at ` 1,472 crore to over 66,801 beneficiaries as on December 31, 2018. HDFC has overtime increased its digital footprint by providing services online thereby making it easier and convenient for its customers. HDFC communicates with customers promptly through new age mediums like HDFC Mobile App, Facebook (www.facebook.com/ HDFCHomeLoanExperts),Twitter (https:// twi t t e r. com/Home Loan s ByHDFC ) , Youtube (www.youtube.com/user/ hdfcltd), LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/ company/hdfc/), HDFC’s Blog (https:// www.hdfc.com/blog/) and its website (www.hdfc.com ), apart from the usual mediums like emails, phone, etc. Home buyers can also apply for home loans online. They can check their eligibility, place disbursement requests online, upload appropriate documents, get tax certificates, pay processing fees online and get loan approved as well. What is the company’s outlook for the next 4-5 years? According to me, the outlook looks very promising. If you look at the residential market on a structural basis, the demand for housing in India is always going to be strong, for multiple reasons. Firstly the penetration of housing in India is very low. The mortgage to gross domestic product ratio is only 10 per cent in India. This number is 18 per cent in China and over 50 per cent for most developed countries. Secondly, the demographics in India are very favourable. About 60 per cent of the population is below 30 years of age and over the next 10 to 15 years, demand for housing will remain strong in India. Thirdly increase in disposable income of the homebuyers has made the purchase of a house most affordable in over a decade. And, finally a lot of focus by the government on home ownership through their flagship scheme viz., Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY). How do you think the housing finance sector will evolve over the next few years? Going forward government’s thrust on affordable housing by way of Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS) for Economically Weaker Section (EWS), Low Income Group (LIG) and Middle Income Group (MIG) segments, interest benefits on home loans and plethora of other initiatives such as smart city and AMRUT project puts housing especially the affordable housing segment in sweet spot for coming years. The real estate sector in the last few years has gone through a massive transformation. The sector has witnessed a plethora of reforms such as PMAY, GST, RERA, demonetization, etc. Affordable housing has been granted infrastructure status and 100% tax exemption on profits for developers building affordable homes. Also with rapid economic growth, easy availability of finance coupled with high disposable income has made many Indians look favorably at buying a home of their own. Also with housing loans to GDP ratio abysmally low at 9%, while China is at 18% and most of the advanced economies at 60-85% there is huge scope for growth for housing in India. This is the 42nd year of HDFC’s operations and we are more excited today than we were 40 years ago, about the prospects of housing in India. Dun & Bradstreet