DBS

DBS: has received “a few thousand applications over the past five months” for its new POSB HDB loan. The loan now accounts for 25% of new bookings, and makes up for some of the slack in the private-home loan market. The majority of customers, over 80%, are refinancing from the HDB, or are first-time bank customers. Last year, two-thirds of the 59,000 HDB homebuyers took a loan from the HDB paying the 2.60% concessionary rate. It is this group that DBS hopes to target with its product that charges 1.75%. Those who took up a POSB HDB loan when it was launched in April could be looking at savings of as much as $1,600 by next month, a according to DBS’ calculations. The first POSB HDB loan pilot launch - where homebuyers enjoyed a floating-rate loan with interest capped below the HDB concessionary rate for 10 years - was fully sold. The bank is now into its second offering, which charges the same rate but for eight years. DBS has the highest HDB loan market share at 30% of new loans. Its HDB loan portfolio is almost $10b, or about up 25 per cent of the bank's Singapore mortgage book.