



PNB Housing bets on emerging markets to boost margins as banks corner high-end loans
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. PNB Housing Finance is targeting higher-than-industry growth in the affordable and emerging-market segments to support its margins amid stiff competition from banks in the prime segment, newly appointed managing director and CEO Ajai Kumar Shukla told Mint in an interview. The lender also plans to scale up its loans against property and commercial loans portfolios to bolster margins, he added.
To drive this growth, the housing financier is focussing on several levers such as growing its branch and distribution network, adding more manpower for these segments, and investing in digital channels, Shukla said. “We will grow faster than the industry in the affordable segment because we have the scope, the distribution and branches to grow," Shukla said in an interview. “We will be adding more branches this year and next year.
Our footprint will increase geographically as well as in terms of additional resources in existing branches wherever there is opportunity to grow," he added. The company currently has 358 branches, of which 79% are for the affordable and emerging market segments. The lender’s affordable portfolio shrank by around 15% year-on-year to ₹786 crore in Q3, which Shukla attributed to delayed repayments on account of a governance ordinance about microfinance loans.
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