About HDFC
- HDFC is a pioneer and a leading provider of housing finance in India since the year 1977.
- Its core values are trust, integrity, transparency and professional service.
- It seeks to increase the residential housing stock in the country by increasing the flow of resources to the housing sector by integrating the housing finance sector with the overall domestic financial markets.
- It has diversified financial services ranging from Banking, Insurance (Life and General), Asset Management, Real Estate Venture Capital, Education Loans etc.
- Its headquarters are located in Mumbai.
Latest Activities By HDFC
- It has launched a SmartUp Unnati mentoring programme to provide support to women entrepreneurs.
- It has launched the Shaurya KGC (Kisan Gold Credit) Card - a loan product for the armed forces. It is modelled after the Kisan Credit Card Scheme for farmers.
- It has launched various digital products like Payzapp and SmartBUY.
- It has crossed USD 100 billion is market capitalization and has become the largest private sector lender (in terms of assets).
- It has also launched HDFC Bank Parivartan’s ECS Scholarship.
- RBI has stopped HDFC from its digital launches as well as new sourcing of credit card customers on a temporary basis without providing any reasons for the same.
Why has HDFC Been Designated As a D-SIB?
- HDFC, along with SBI, ICICI and SBI, has been declared as a Domestic Systemically Important Bank (D-SIB). This label implies that these banks have been designated as “too big to fail”.
- The RBI has labelled them so and this creates an expectation of government support for them in times of financial distress.
- For the banks to be so designated, they ought to have assets that exceed 2% of GDP.
- The failure of these banks would result in a cascading effect on the financial system of the country.
- The bank acquired a 9.99% stake in FERBINE (a Tata Group promoted entity) to operate a Pan-India umbrella entity for retail payment systems, similar to NPCI.
- SIBs are subjected to additional policy measures to combat systemic risks and moral hazard issues such as an additional Common Equity Tier 1 Capital.
