Godrej forays into Housing Finance biz

The Godrej Group has announced its entry into the financial services industry and has launched Godrej Housing Finance (GHF), which aims at building a long-term, sustainable retail financial services business in India and targeted a balance sheet of ₹10,000 crore in the next three years. Godrej Housing finance will offer fair, fast and flexible home loans across India, starting with customers in Mumbai, NCR, Pune and Bangalore. GHF will partner with developers including Godrej Properties to build a superior financing experience for their existing and new customers. Its product offerings are guided by three pillars - flexibility (enabling customers to customize the payment of their own contribution and EMI schedule), affordability (offering competitive pricing with lowest interest rates starting at 6.69%) and personalization (using data-driven decision making to micro-segment customers and tailor-made loan offerings)

Pirojsha Godrej, Chairman, Godrej Housing Finance, said: "This is the first step in what we hope will be another important pillar of growth for the Godrej Group. The increasing formalization of the real estate sector combined with the dislocation in the residential real estate and housing finance markets makes this an interesting opportunity."

MD and CEO, Godrej Housing Finance, Manish Shah, adds: "The Housing Finance market is underpenetrated and underserved. The industry is also plagued with being complex and convoluted with hidden conditions and painfully long customer journeys. We aim to correct this and usher a refreshingly simple and transparent way of doing business. We want to give customers a home loan that is customised to what's important to them, basis their housing needs, financial capability and convenience." Godrej Housing Finance intends to focus on the mortgage business starting with home loans, followed by loans against property. In the near future, the company will expand its product portfolio to offer Business and Personal loans, leveraging the Group's consumer and agribusiness ecosystems to build these verticals.