Fourteen banks injected EGP 4.107bn to finance low- and middle-income housing until the end of October, which comes in the framework of the mortgage funding initiative, according to May Abdel Hamid, the head of the Mortgage Finance Fund (MFF) and the CEO of the Social Housing Fund.
While addressing a financial leasing conference on Tuesday, Abdel Hamid said that these loans benefited 52,300 clients, pointing out that the fund provided clients with financing worth EGP 965m.
She noted that 17 banks have signed protocol agreements with the MFF, but only 14 have injected funding to low- and middle-income housing until now.
Abdel Hamid stressed that the rising price of the US dollar against the Egyptian pound, along with the application of the value-added tax (VAT), may lead to the increase of social housing unit prices.
She noted that a number of companies, including the Egyptian Mortgage Refinance Co., will be joining the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) in a mortgage financing initiative in the coming period.
The MFF has obtained funding worth $125m from the World Bank, Abdel Hamid said, noting that the figure was part of a $500m funding package that will be received in the coming period.
Also during the conference, Sherif Samy, head of the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA), said that the total value of financial leasing contracts over the first nine months of 2016 amounted to EGP 15bn, compared to EGP 13bn in 2015.
He added that only 30 out of a potential 200 companies are registered as financial leasing companies.
With regards to microfinance, Sami explained that the market has 725 civil associations and three companies, all of which have provided EGP 3.5bn in funds over the past period.
