Predatory Lending

Just when the whole world is waking up to the fact that too much of leverage is a bad thing, there's an ad in today's Hindu for home loans with a 3% down payment. The lender is none other than ICICI Bank, who is also in the news today for the wrong reasons:

Mr. Chidambaram pointed out that the country’s public sector banks, in which the government holds the majority shareholding, did not have any “undue exposure” and whatever they had were in accordance with the Reserve Bank of India guidelines. ICICI Bank, however, did have some exposure and it had made the necessary disclosures.

No surprises there.