FMBN disburses N40.9b housing loans to 1,843 contributors

Nigeria’s leading mortgage institution, the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) has disbursed housing loans totaling N40.9 billion to 1,843 National Housing Fund (NHF) contributors.

The bank has also provided home renovation loans totaling N14.072billion to 16,031 Nigerian workers, and processed N12.4billion refunds to contributors and registered 224,752 to the fund.

The figures was released at the presentation by FMBN Managing Director, Ahmed Musa Dangiwa, during the Senate Committee on Housing oversight visit to the bank’s headquarters in Abuja.

Dangiwa, an architect also listed innovative housing products that FMBN has tailored to tackle the housing affordability challenge for contributors to the NHF as part of its achievement.

These include the rent-to-own scheme, where contributors can own a home and pay by monthly or yearly rents over a 30-year period, and the NHF Individual Housing Construction loans that are payable over a 15-year period at interest rates of seven per cent.

In a statement signed by the FMBN Group Head, Corporate Communications, Mrs. Zubaida Umar, another notable achievement is the reduction of equity contribution requirements for accessing NHF loans from ten to zero per cent for sums of up to N5million and 20, 30 per cent to ten per cent for loans of up to N15million.

On the way forward, the FMBN boss stated that the bank will continue ongoing efforts to fully automate its business operations to improve efficiency and timeliness in the delivery of its services to Nigerian workers.

He stated that a key component of this strategic policy is achieving end-to-end automation of all its operations ranging from NHF collection, loan processing, issuance of statement of accounts, NHF refunds amongst others.

Dangiwa thanked the Senate Committee under the leadership of Senator Barnabas Gemade for their unprecedented support of the bank, expressing appreciation for the accelerated hearing and passage of the NHF and FMBN Amendment bills which are now ready for the President’s assent.

In his remarks, Gemade stated that in the two years of carrying out their constitutional role to supervise and oversight the bank, they had noted a strong sense of direction and accountability by the management.

The senators advised the management to keep up the good work and called on stakeholders to support their efforts to strengthen the bank for even greater impact.