Mumbai, Aug. 26: Taking a leaf out of the State Bank of India’s book, ICICI Bank today announced special offers on new home loans.

The country’s second largest bank will charge an interest rate of 8.75 per cent for loans up to Rs 20 lakh. For loans of Rs 20-50 lakh, the interest rate will be 9.25 per cent. Borrowings above Rs 50 lakh will attract an interest rate of 9.75 per cent.

The new schemes will be effective from August 20.

The private lender has been going slow over the past few months on enhancing its asset book, particularly on retail advances, as a deliberate strategy.

The latest offer can be an indication of the bank gradually turning competitive in the home loan market without compromising on its margins.

This is for the first time this year that ICICI Bank has introduced measures to woo home loan customers.

The SBI has stunned the market with its attractive offers since February .

However, the ICICI Bank’s interest rates are around 75 basis points dearer than the SBI’s recent My Home Campaign.

The SBI capped the interest rate at 8 per cent for five years on loans of up to Rs 5 lakh. Thereafter, the customer has an option to choose between a floating rate of 2.75 per cent below State Bank Advance Rate (SBAR) or a fixed rate of 1.25 per cent below SBAR for a further loan term of 5 years. The bank also said it would not charge any processing fee on the loans.

Recently, Chanda Kochhar, managing director and CEO of ICICI Bank, had said that the difference between home loan rates offered by the public and private sector banks was not huge, and one must look at effective rates over the entire life of a loan and not just over the first and the second years.