Growth visible in ICICI’s auto, home loans

Mumbai: India's second largest lender, ICICI Bank, has seen growth returning in its home and auto loans portfolios in the second quarter on the back of improving sentiments in the credit market, its chief said.

The bank, however, expects lending rates in the industry to harden in the second-half of the year in line with the pick-up in loan off-take.

The bank said that it has aligned its lending rates with the market.

"There is growth already seen in auto and home loans...in the latter part of this fiscal, I expect that project finances will also pick up...we will continue to focus on home, auto and infrastructure loan segments," ICICI Bank's Managing Director and CEO, Chanda Kochhar, said.

With a revival expected in the economy, credit off-take is expected to improve in the second-half of this fiscal and corporates are expected to resume their projects, Kochhar said on the sidelines of a FICCI-IBA seminar here.

Noting that lending rates have bottomed out in the second quarter, Kochhar said that rates will gradually start rising in the second-half of the year with a pick-up in credit off-take.