The home loan rates of ICICI Bank were revised upwards for the new customers of the bank but sources said that rates had been increased for the old customers as well.

On October 10th ICICI had raised the interest rates from 12% to 13% at the time of very tight money market conditions. However these new rates were only applicable to new customers. The bank is viewing its cost of funds before taking any decision on lending rates.

Now it is said that the bank new rates would be applicable to the existing customers as well. The bank has not raised its benchmark rates and therefore the interest rates for old customers cannot change. But despite of this fact, bank has raised the rates for the old customers. This was revealed when a bank executive from ICICI called a customer to inform about revised interest rates.

ICICI Bank is not the only lender who has quietly raised its home loan rates. Even Standard Chartered Bank has silently raised its home loan rates by 100 basis points to 13%. This hike will be applicable to both the new and existing customers of the bank. A spokesperson from StanChart said, "We have raised home loan interest rate in early October 2008 by 100 bps. The rise was in response to market conditions and industry trend. The rise has been made applicable to customer accounts over a phased period depending on when they had availed of the loan."

The new rates of StanChart will come into effect from November 1st.