Piramal Finance Limited (PFL) announced its foray into the retail housing finance business through its wholly owned subsidiary, Piramal Housing Finance Private Ltd. Under a license received from the National Housing Bank to operate, the housing finance vertical will offer home loans as well as loans against property and construction finance for small developers. Given the size, scale and market relevance of the wholesale lending business, it was a natural progression to assess opportunities within the retail lending space. The retail housing finance business will initially focus on a product roll out across all major metro cities and thereafter seek to establish a pan-India presence, including Tier II-III towns and cities. The retail construction finance arm will focus on local developers in Tier I and top developers in Tier II-III geographies. A key differentiator of this offering is that the home loan distribution will be driven through the developer relationships that PFL already has in place through its wholesale lending arm. In fact, the company believes that business (Piramal Housing Finance) to business (developer) to consumer (retail home buyers) or B2B2C is integral to the housing finance business. The strength of the relationships is evident in the numbers; PFL’s existing wholesale business has over Rs 35,000 crore in assets under management (across debt and equity), with funding across 300+ projects and over 100 development partners.