Mumbai: India’s oldest mortgage lender Housing Development Finance Corp Ltd (HDFC) on Tuesday extended its dual-rate housing loan scheme for new customers till 30 September after hiking the interest rate by 25 basis points (bps). One basis point is one hundredth of a percentage point.

Under this scheme, all new home loan customers who apply on or before 30 September and take at least part disbursement before 31 October will be offered loans at a fixed rate of 8.50% up to 31 March 2011, and 9.50% next year. The rates will become floating, or exposed to interest rate volatility, from the third year, HDFC said.

This is an extension to HDFC’s last scheme that expired in September. Under the scheme, loans were offered at 8.25% in first year and 9.25% in second year.

State Bank of India has also a dual-rate home loan scheme under which it offers home loans at 8% for the first year and 9% for the second and third year irrespective of the loan amount. From the fourth year onwards, the rate gets linked to the bank’s benchmark rate.

IndiaBulls Financial Services Ltd on Tuesday launched a new home loan scheme for salaried people under which it will offer home loans at 8.5% up to March 2011, followed by 9.5% till 2012. After that, the rates will be floating in nature.