Focus on tier II & III cities, to include commercial loans Six years after selling off its housing finance to IDBI, the Tata Group is again foraying into home finance. Tata Housing Finance Company Ltd (THFCL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Capital, would be focusing on tier-II and tier III cities for financing homes. The housing finance company was set up with an authorised share capital of Rs 100 crore, of which Rs 10 crore has already been subscribed, said Praveen P Kadle, managing director, Tata Capital.  THFCL is targeting Rs 200 to Rs 400 crore in disbursements in the first year of operations, Kadle added. Housing finance companies and non-banking finance corporations have a 35 per cent market share on housing loans in the country. THFCL would focus primarily on tier-II and tier-III cities, where there is a gap between demand and supply of organised housing finance.  The company would also have commercial loans, very small loans and personal loans in its portfolio, said Shyam Mani, chief operating officer, retail loans, Tata Capital. The company would be operating in a band of between 8 and 12 per cent interest rates for various loans depending on the customer profile, said Mani.  Tata Housing would be setting up 35 wholly-owned outlets in the country to grab a share of a projected demand of close to 2.47 crore new housing units in the country, out of which 1.41 crore would be rural, and the rest urban, said the presentation. Courtesy:- HT dt:- 20-05-2009