Private lender, IndusInd Bank builds its business strategy for the current financial year. The bank has decided to shift its focus to vehicle financing while staying away from other consumer loans like home loans and education loans during the ongoing fiscal.

Managing Director and CEO of IndusInd Bank, Romesh Sobti said, "Vehicle finance is our core business in consumer banking and we will like to focus on growing it rather than expanding our retail loan bouquet and incurring more bad debt."

Currently the vehicle loan portfolio of the bank is performing well at Rs 7,200 crore with Rs 179 crore of gross non-performing assets (NPA). "Our net NPA in vehicle finance is 1.7 percent and this is much below the industry average of 4.5 percent," Sobti said.

Meanwhile the bank also disburses other retail loans but the exposure is less. "We also have a small portfolio of home loans worth Rs 170 crore, but we don't want to increase this aggressively in the current fiscal. We'll look at increasing our home loan book next year," added Sobti.

In April 2008, consumer loans mainly comprising of vehicle finance was recorded at contributing 55% to the bank's total loan book. "At the end of 2008-09, retail lending comprised 45 percent, while 55 percent came from corporate lending," informed Sobti.

The growth in the loan book of IndusInd bank was mainly attributed to the corporate lending. "Our corporate lending increased 53 per cent during the year from Rs 5,500 crore to Rs 8,400 crore," Sobti said.

On the other hand, the auto loan business of the bank did not marked a significant rise during 2008-09. "This was because the overall vehicle finance market was down," he said.

The auto industry has been severely hit by the global financial turmoil that spread its roots since September 2008.

In 2004, the IndusInd Bank was merged with Ashok Leyland Finance by the Hinduja group.