Vijaya Bank facing home loan defaults

[Kalyan]

Vijaya Bank facing home loan defaults

Vijaya bank on Thursday said it is witnessing delinquency in home loans and has initiated steps to control the defaults.

"The delinquency has mainly been in home loans," Vijaya Bank Chairman and Managing Director Albert Tauro said.

"These are not bad loans, only that the incremental EMIs due to the current economic scenario had led to these borrowers defaulting on payments," he said.

The delinquency is expected to settle once the situation eases.

In the retail segment, outstanding retail loans grew by 13.16 per cent year-on-year to Rs 9,069 crore, accounting for 24.70 per cent of the bank's gross credit.

The retail loan exposure was 25-26 per cent of the book value with home loans totalling up to nearly Rs 4,000 crore.

The bank's net non-performing assets were Rs 268 crore in second quarter of this fiscal as against Rs 116 crore in the same quarter last fiscal.

The bank on its part has taken measures to control the defaults, which amounted to nearly Rs 145 crore this quarter.

Asked whether the bank would go slow on giving home loans, Tauro said, "We do not intend to go slow on home loans. We will aggressively market it, but now we have set up 11 cells to process the applications," he said.

These cells would select borrowers after a thorough due diligence, he said.