Bank of Maharashtra Cuts Home Loan Rates by 40 bps

State-owned Bank of Maharashtra slashed its home loan rates in an aggressive push that took its interest charges below the rates offered by the country's largest lender State Bank of India and mortgage lender Housing Development FInance Corporation. The Pune-headquartered BoM has reduced home loan rates by 40 basis points to 6.4% from 6.8% earlier. The fine rates will be available for customers with best credit scores from December 13, the bank said. One basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point. SBI offers home loans at a minimum of 6.7% a year and HDFC's festive rate on home loans also starts at 6.7%. "The rate cut is to increase the demand and to increase our credit-deposit ratio. The present reduction may not impact net interest margin (NIM) much as increased credit will fetch more net interest income (NII). This is mainly due to switching from investments to credit, that too quality credit due to higher CIBIL rating," BoM Managing Director AS Rajeev said. With the latest rate cuts, the bank is expecting home loans to grow at 25% rate, better than the 20% growth it is witnessing now.