The country’s largest foreign lender, Citibank, today announced the launch of CitiHome One, which seeks to combine the features of a conventional home loan and a credit line.
Customers will be able to convert up to 30 per cent of their total home loan amount into a credit line.
The remaining 70 per cent of the mortgage will be treated as a conventional home loan, on which the customer will pay interest and principal in the form of equated monthly installments (EMI) from the beginning.
The customer can draw the credit line as and when they need funds and will have to pay a monthly interest on the amount availed. The rate of interest for funds drawn from the credit line will be 50 basis points higher than the interest on the home loan.
The Citibank mortgage prime lending rate is currently 13.5 per cent.
The term loan component has a standard loan tenure of up to 20 years, while the credit line is subject to a maximum tenure of 10 years. After that, customers can either make a one-time repayment, or convert the credit line into another term loan and pay back through EMIs.
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Customers of the new CitiHome One loan account will be automatically enrolled into a current account facility.
This account, where the credit line is set, will serve as an umbrella account.
CitiHome One customers can get a maximum of Rs 5 crore under the loan facility. The credit line can extend up to 30 per cent of the total facility or Rs 1 crore, whichever is lower.
Citibank also unveiled the CitiHome One variant for loans against property.
Ashish Mehrotra, head of consumer assets at Citibank India, said, “By making our customers’ money work harder for them, this research-backed product shall become the preferred alternative to the conventional home loan.”