HDFC home loan: Mortgage lender HDFC has announced a reduction in its retail prime lending rate (RPLR) on housing loans, on which its adjustable-rate home loans (ARHL) are benchmarked, by 10 basis points. This comes into effect from the 1oth of November. The change will benefit all existing HDFC retail home loan customers, the lender said.

The National Housing Bank (NHB) earlier this month said there are distinct signs of green shoots in the housing finance sector.

New approvals of housing and non-housing loans by HFCs during September 2020 were at 130% of the previous period, NHB, the regulator for housing finance companies (HFCs), said in a statement.

Home loan disbursements by HFCs during September 2020 were also better at 105 percent compared to September 2019, it said.

Many lenders have recently cut home loan rates as part of its festive season campaign.

HDFC shares were up 5% in noon trade on BSE at ₹2257 apiece. Earlier this month, Housing Development Finance Corp. Ltd (HDFC) said its September-quarter standalone profit dropped by 27% to ₹2,870.12 crores because of one-time gains in the year-ago period. The mortgage lender reported a profit of ₹3,962 crores in the year earlier.

HDFC had said that home loan disbursements were better than expected in October. Loan approvals rose by 58% from last year while loan disbursements gained 35%. (With Agency Inputs)

Mean-while, India’s COVID-19 caseload went past 86.83 lakh, while the number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 80,66,502, pushing the national recovery rate to 92.79 percent, according to the Union Health Ministry’s data.

With 47,905 more people testing positive for coronavirus in a span of 24 hours, the infection tally mounted to 86,83,917, while the deaths rose to 1,28,121 after 550 new fatalities were reported, the data showed.

 Any COVID-19 survivors are likely to be at greater risk of developing mental illness, psychiatrists said on Monday after a large study found 20% of those infected with the coronavirus are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder within 90 days.

Anxiety, depression, and insomnia were most common among recovered COVID-19 patients in the study who developed mental health problems. The researchers from Britain’s Oxford University also found significantly higher risks of dementia, a brain impairment condition.

“People have been worried that COVID-19 survivors will be at greater risk of mental health problems, and our findings … show this to be likely,” said Paul Harrison, a professor of psychiatry at Oxford.