(Reuters) -India’s PNB Housing Finance reported a 25% rise in fourth-quarter profit on Monday, helped by strong demand for home loans.
The company’s consolidated net profit rose to 5.5 billion rupees ($64.7 million) for the quarter ended March 31 from 4.39 billion rupees a year earlier.
Total revenue increased 12% to 20.22 billion rupees.
India’s housing market has seen resilient demand in recent quarters, especially for premium residences. Demand for affordable homes is also picking up, analysts said, aided by the government’s push for low-cost housing.
The non-banking financial company has expanded to affordable housing in recent quarters as the segment commands higher interest rates due to lower competition from big banks. Its total loan disbursements jumped 23%.
Disbursements in the affordable housing segment doubled year-on-year to 12.91 billion rupees, while that for the prime segment rose 7% to 41.41 billion rupees.
Net interest income, the difference between interest earned and paid, rose 16.2% to 7.34 billion rupees.
Meanwhile, its asset quality improved, with gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans falling to 1.08% at the end of March from 1.50% last year.
Last week, bigger rival Bajaj Housing Finance also posted a rise in quarterly profit on strong demand.
PNB Housing’s shares ended 1.5% higher ahead of the results.
($1 = 85.0160 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Nishit Navin; Editing by Eileen Soreng)
