PNB Housing Finance Raises $100 Million From World Bank Arm

PNB Housing Finance Ltd. has raised $100 million in funding from World Bank’s International Finance Corporation to finance the purchase of affordable housing projects, the home loans arm of Punjab National Bank said on Monday.

"The investment was made under the central bank's automatic route in the revamped External Commercial Borrowings framework," PNB Housing Finance said in a filing to the stock exchanges.

This is the first external commercial borrowing disbursement during 2019-20 under the RBI automatic route, said Sanjaya Gupta, managing director at PNB Housing Finance, adding that several other ECB proposals are in the pipeline.

"RBI has allowed us to borrow ECB up to $750 million annually under the automatic route, and considering the strong fundamentals and inherent growth of the company, we are hopeful that in the coming months our company will further utilise the facility," said Gupta.

"To support the Indian government's vision of ‘Housing for All’ by 2022, our country strategy places a strong emphasis on the affordable housing sector,” said IFC South Asia Manager Hemalata Mahalingam.

“Our partnership with PNB Housing Finance will help them further expand to smaller towns and cities and reach low-income customers with loans to buy homes and help raise their living standards,” Mahalingam added.