University workers, students to benefit from FMBN’s housing loan scheme

The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), says it is planning to finance the construction of student hostels and staff quarters for university workers to enable them to benefit from its loan scheme.

Its Managing Director, Mr Shehu Osidi, said this at the ongoing 2024 FMBN Management Retreat on Monday.

The theme of the Retreat is “Improving Efficiency and Customer Service Delivery for Developmental Impact.”

Osidi said that as part of the bank’s strategic engagements, FMBN has concluded arrangements to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Shelter Afrique Development Bank.

This, he said, was to explore lines of funding for FMBN’s new initiative like rental housing and the development of student hostels.

“The FMBN manages the National Housing Fund (NHF), which is a pool of funds contributed by Nigerian workers as 2.5 per cent is deducted from their salaries.

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“It is the students that graduate from the school that ultimately become workers.

“So, what we are trying to do is to catch them young so that while they are still on campus, they can have a feel of FMBN.

“We are looking at financing the construction of student hostels and constructing staff quarters for university lecturers and university non-academic employees.

Osidi said that FMBN would partner with universities to achieve that and also provide hostel financing for university students who would ultimately graduate to become workers and contribute to the National Housing Fund.

He said that under the Renewable Agenda of the President driven by the Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, an MOU was signed with the consortium of developers under a public private partnership arrangement.

This, he said, was so they could raise funding for housing construction.

“So, what FMBN did was to provide a 100 billion naira to enable this consortium of developers to access consortium financing from financiers.

“The essence of the uptake guarantee is that if the houses are built, FMBN will provide mortgage finance to the beneficiaries of those houses.

Osidi said that by building and nurturing partnerships, the bank would leverage synergies, access new resources and expand its reach to scale up its impact and accelerate the delivery of affordable housing across Nigeria.

He added that the bank was retrategising to deliver on its mandate.

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“FMBN is going through a lot of legacy issues most of which have to do with service delivery and efficiency.

“A lot of times, people will tell you they applied for loans from FMBN; it takes so long before those loans get approved.

“So, as a new management, we want to change that narrative. We want to make sure that we are able to serve our customers on time.

“So, this retreat is about how we can create efficiency in operations and, at the same time, how we can deliver service to our customers within the context of the best thing that we can offer,” he said.

Osidi said that the retreat would provide the opportunity to ex-ray FMBN’s journey so far, and find out the impediments holding it back from advancing speedily.

“No one can do this better than us. From delays in our loan processes, the core-banking project, to inter-account settlement issues and other challenges, we must pinpoint the pain points and agree a way forward to eliminate the pains,” he said.

Osidi urged the staff to be bold, creative and solutions-oriented, and come up with strategic goals identifying areas for improvement.

He said that they should also explore innovative solutions and commit to actions that would enhance FMBN’s efficiency and excellent customer service.