NHB's proposed norms will not address credit risk of HFCs: Moody's

12 Mar 2019 Evaluate

Global rating agency Moody’s Investors Service in its latest report has said that new guidelines proposed by the National Housing Bank (NHB) to increase capital adequacy ratio (CAR) to 15 percent in a phased manner is credit positive for housing finance company (HFCs) because they would limit housing HFCs' credit growth and cap their maximum exposure to the debt capital markets. However, it said that the proposed norms will not address issues regarding the key credit risk of HFCs, funding and liquidity.

The report has stated that following the default, liquidity in the debt market tightened sharply, leading to increased risk that the HFCs would be unable to refinance maturing obligations, which was reflected by a sharp increase in their commercial paper yields. Although the HFCs have since September 2018 slowed loan growth to conserve liquidity, the contagion effect of HFCs' liquidity issues can be severe because these companies are a significant borrowers from the banking system.

According to the global rating agency, rated banks' exposure to HFCs was between 3-5 percent of total loans as of December 31, 2018. It noted that the NHB's proposed guidelines will benefit HFCs and lenders to the HFCs, particularly commercial banks, because the guidelines will help limit HFCs' credit growth. It also said that most of the large HFCs already comply with these guidelines, but it expects that some of the smaller HFCs will slow their loan growth or increase capital and lower their leverage over the next few years.

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