ICICI Home Finance Company Limited, the fully owned home loans company set up by ICICI Limited in 1999, has continuously striven to provide customer friendly products and services at favourable cost to its customers. In line with its practices, the Company has now announced the following new schemes and facilities for its customers:

1. Limited Festive Season Discount Offer: the Company has announced a special Festive Season offer of zero per cent loan processing fee for all home loan applications received between September 10, 2001 to October 20, 2001. As a result, a customer under the scheme will save the 0.8% processing fee on the loan amount. Loan Processing fees are applicable on almost all home loan products offered by housing finance companies.

2. Balance Transfer Scheme: Interest rates on home loans have come down considerably in the last few years. In order to pass on the benefit of lower interest rates to borrowers who might have taken high interest home loans at an earlier period, ICICI Home Finance has announced a Balance Transfer scheme. Under this scheme, customers can replace their existing high interest loan by a cheaper (equal to applicable current rates) loan from ICICI Home Finance Company. The amount and tenor of the new loan will be equal to the balance amount and tenor of the existing loan. For example, if a customer had taken a loan of 10 years in 1997, he would be paying interest rate in the range of 17%. By shifting the loan to ICICI Home Finance, the rate will come down to as low as 12.25%. Besides, the customer will also have the option to enhance the loan amount or the residual tenor of the loan.

3. Free Personal Accidental Death Insurance: ICICI Home Finance has also introduced a "Free Personal Accidental Death Insurance" scheme for all its customers availing home loans from September 20, 2001 onwards. As per the Insurance offer, in the unfortunate event of an accidental death of an ICICI Home Loan customer, the EMI's of the balance period will get waived. The Company has tied up with National Insurance to offer this special benefit to the customer wherein the insurance cover will take care of the balance loan amount.

Said Ms Madhabi Puri Buch, Managing Director, ICICI Home Finance, "We believe in providing value addition to the customer which is possible only if all his existing and perceived needs, in relation to taking a home loan, are fulfilled. We hope our continuous efforts to upgrade our products and services will enable our customers to have a satisfying experience when dealing with us."

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 resale 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. The company has introduced several customer friendly services such as 'door-step' service, 'know your loan on phone' facility and 'ICICI Home Search' - free property brokerage services. In FY 200-01, the Company sanctioned loans totalling Rs. 1,388 crore and disbursed Rs. 677 crore. The Company offers the following rates to home loan borrowers: