ICICI Home Finance Launches Free Real Estate Brokerage Service

Pune, August 10,2001: ICICI Home Finance Company Limited (ICICI HFC), set up in 1999 as the housing finance subsidiary of ICICI, has taken rapid strides in providing cost effective and customer oriented products and services in the area of home finance. It has introduced several new products for home loan customers such as 30-year home loans, loans with tenor based interest rates and specific NRI products and services such as doorstep service and know-your-loan-on-phone service.

In another initiative to provide complete fulfillment to customers, ICICI Home Finance has launched "ICICI Home Search" - a value added property service - in Pune today. ICICI Home Search is aimed at assisting customers at every stage of a real estate transaction right from identifying a suitable property to completing legal documentation. The service, launched in Pune today, will be extended to major metros in the current financial year and subsequently to other cities.

This highly personalised service will be offered free of charge to customers in case of first sale properties. The Company announced that it has set up a specialized Property Services Group to bring these quality property services to customers.

"This service is our attempt to bring transparency, structure and credibility to real estate transactions and provide ICICI assurance to customers, " said Ms. Madhabi Puri Buch, Managing Director, ICICI Home Finance Company Limited.

ICICI Home Search will conduct day-long exhibitions in Pune at regular intervals starting from August 12, 2001. Here, customers can come and get complete information on more than 3,000 properties in Pune, which have been approved by an independent expert panel after a rigorous technical and legal evaluation. The expert panel comprising of independent site engineers and legal experts approve the property only when it meets strict norms on compliance and clear title.

"ICICI Home Search is a one-stop shop for all real estate requirements. With ICICI Home Search the customer is saved the trouble of visiting different builders /brokers as information on all projects in the city are provided to him under one roof. Already, during the pilot launch a sizeable number of customers have registered with us for the service. They have given us their requirements and accordingly we have started showing them properties in Pune," said Mr Prathit Bhobe, Western Regional Head, ICICI Home Finance Company Limited.

Apart from providing access to a large number of approved properties at one place, ICICI Home Search will also use its knowledge to offer advise to customers with regard to choice of a suitable property based on their budget, locational preference and other requirements.

The customers in Pune city can avail of this service by walking into any of the exhibitions that the Company is planning to organize all over the city. The first such exhibition is being held on Sunday, August 12, 2001 at ICICI Center, Opposite Veer Savarkar Bhavan, Shivaji Nagar, Pune.

About ICICI Home Finance
ICICI Home Finance, a fully owned subsidiary of ICICI Limited, is a housing finance Company registered with the National Housing Bank. ICICI Home Loans are available to customers in 60 cities/towns across the country. Loans are offered for purchase of new homes, purchase of old homes and Home Improvement. Besides, ICICI Home Finance Company Limited has also launched Loans for commercial property and is offering loans against existing property. The loans are offered for tenors upto 30 years. In the last financial year ICICI Home Finance has sanctioned loans amounting to Rs. 1,388 crore and disbursed about Rs. 677 crore. The Company recently launched its maiden public borrowing programme through an issue of Fixed Deposits to investors.

Except for the historical information contained herein, statements in this release which contain words or phrases such as "will", "aim", "will likely result", "believe", "expect", "will continue", "anticipate", "estimate", "intend", "plan", "contemplate", "seek to", "future", "objective", "goal", "project", "should", "will pursue" and similar expressions or variations of such expressions may constitute "forward-looking statements". These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those suggested by the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to our ability to successfully implement the ICICI Home Search service of ICICI Home Finance Company Limited, our growth and expansion, the adequacy of our allowance for credit losses, technological changes, investment income, cash flow projections, our exposure to market risks as well as other risks detailed in the reports filed by ICICI Limited with the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States. ICICI undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date thereof.

For further press queries please contact Prathit Bhobe at 022-653 8726 or e-mail bhobe@icici.com.