New Delhi: India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) under Department of Posts, and LIC Housing Finance Ltd. (LICHFL), the country’s premier housing finance player, today announced a strategic partnership for providing home loan products to over 4.5 crore customers of IPPB.
Through its robust and extensive network of 650 branches and more than 136,000 banking access points, IPPB will make LICHFL’s home loan products accessible to its customers pan-India.
As part of the Memorandum of Understanding, credit underwriting, processing, and disbursement for all home loans will be handled by LICHFL with IPPB responsible for sourcing.
The alliance with LICHFL is part of IPPB’s strategy to expand its range of products and services, and to cater to the banking and financial needs of diverse customers, especially unbanked and underserved, across the country.
Currently, IPPB is distributing various general and life insurance products through partnerships with leading insurance companies, and credit products is a natural extension for the customers at the last mile. IPPB’s on-ground workforce of nearly 200,000 postal employees (Postmen and GraminDakSevaks) equipped with micro-ATMs and biometric devices through its innovative Doorstep Banking Service will play a significant role in offering LICHFL’s housing loans.
On the significance of the tie-up with LICHFL, J. Venkatramu, MD and CEO, India Post Payments Bank said, “Easy access to credit for buying a house is an important prerequisite towards achieving inclusive growth. Since its inception till now and going forward, IPPB is committed towards promoting financial inclusion among low-income and underbanked segments at the last mile by leveraging the unparalleled network of Post Offices, and technology-driven banking solutions. The partnership with LICHFL is a significant tie-up in IPPB’s journey to become one of the largest platforms for availing credit products by our customers for meeting various needs, in line with our focus on providing comprehensive customer-centric, convenient and digital solutions to our customers.”
Y. Viswanatha Gowd, MD & CEO, LIC Housing Finance said, “The strategic MoU with IPPB will help us to further deepen our market penetration and enable us to increase LICHFL’s home loan product outreach in untapped geographies across the country. With an unmatchable presence of Post Offices, we see this strategic partnership as a significant step that will help our long-term business growth and improve our market share. This is in line with the Company’s objective to increase business contribution from Tier 2 markets and beyond.”
LIC Housing Finance Ltd, offers home loan starting from 6.66% for loans up to Rs 50 lakh for salaried individuals. The rate of interest offered is linked to the borrower’s creditworthiness, as reflected by their CIBIL scores.
LICHFL’s unique home loan product – GrihaVarishtha– is designed for retired or serving employees of PSU insurers, Central/State government, railways, defence, banks etc. entitled to pension under Defined Benefit Pension Scheme. The age of the borrower at entry of the loan can be up to 65 years and the loan tenure is till the attainment of 80 years of age or maximum up to 30 years, whichever is earlier. Under this product LIC HFL offers EMI waiver of up to 6 EMIs during the tenure of the loan to the borrower.
-global bihari bureau
