Just a day after the biggest wealth creator from the NBFC space witnessed a sharp cut, it might appear that NBFC is not a right sector to look at. But go back to history and one would see that the time to look at a sector is when something which is perceived as negative. In the last three months, whether it is the consumer lending or housing finance segment, the RBI has been tightening the laws and regulations for provisioning. The question is why RBI is doing it and whether it will give a boost to a higher and cleaner growth. By cleaner growth, a growth which is less volatile and less accident prone. Given the fact the NBFC sector has a history of meeting with accidents and creating problems for a lot of sectors. The answer tilts toward yes, this regulatory tightening is good and in long term value accretive.
Housing finance is a business where perception is that because it is largely secured lending, chances of companies going down under are very low. But if one looks at the history, there are enough local companies and global corporations which have gone down under in the housing finance space. Despite all the ills, one of the biggest wealth creators in the history of the Indian stock market has been a housing finance company, erstwhile HDFC which now merged with HDFC bank. So, it is a business which is good to own but what you choose to own matters most.
In India, there is history to all the major regulatory overhauls. It is a scam which brings in a crisis and that makes our regulators rework on the operating guidelines for that sector. Right from 1992 Harshad Mehta scam, which gave SEBI its teeth, in 2000 it was Ketan parekh scam which brought in major changes on trading instruments and how trades are settled. After the NBFC crisis in 2018. Regulatory changes happened across the board in the financial sector. Whether it was NBFC or bank space, the post NBFC crisis made life tough for all players. But after all the mayhem, things have turned out better for some.