Page 18 - BANKING FINANCE APRIL 2017
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HOUSING
HOUSING
Canara Bank sells stake in housing finance arm for Rs. EPFO housing scheme
754 crore kicks off
Canara Bank said that it had sold a 13.45% stake in its subsidiary Can Fin Homes Retirement fund body EPFO has
Ltd for Rs 753.77 crore to an affiliate of Singapore's launched a housing scheme for its
sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte Ltd. The buyer, over four
Caladium Investment Pvt Ltd, bought 35,80,849 c r o r e
shares at Rs 2,105 each in an off-market deal.
members
The decision to sell the stake in its home loans arm to enable
is part of the state-owned bank's plan to monetise them to
assets that are not core to its main lending business. m a k e
Affordable homes to be free from stamp duty down payment and pay EMIs from
their EPF accounts to buy homes.
Affordable houses may soon be exempt from stamp duty, which varies between
4% and 8% of the transaction value. Union minister for urban development and Under the scheme, the EPFO will act
housing M Venkaiah Naidu said that his ministry has written to state govern- as a facilitator for its subscribers to
ments to exempt affordable houses from stamp duty. Stamp duty is a state sub- buy homes for themselves during
ject, with the state government fixing the rate and collecting the duty. their service period," a source said.
Addressing Credai (Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Associations of India) The subscribers as well as their em-
the minister said that the Centre would ensure that there was no net tax escala- ployers would be required to form a
tion in the housing sector, particularly the affordable housing segment, following group housing society which would
the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST). He said that the inclusion further tie up with banks and build-
of the real estate sector in the GST framework would help the industry.
ers, he said. Under the scheme it is
SBI forms group to manage real estate envisaged that there should be 20
members at least in the group hous-
State Bank of India has formed a subsidiary to manage group's real estate and ing society to avail the facility.
premises. SBI Infra Management Solutions Pvt Ltd
(SBIIMS) will deal with functions such as project man- The scheme will also help the formal
agement, facility, transaction management, advisory sector workers proving their credit
services and implementation of policies. worthiness as the EPFO would pro-
The decision to incorporate separate entity is taken to help vide a certificate indicating the sub-
the bank's executives save time and focus on core banking scribers' paying capacity and ability
services. Prior to the move, they were involved in managing this non-core business. to repay loans.
18 | 2017 | APRIL | BANKING FINANCE
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