The Industrial Development Bank of Egypt (IDBE) signed a cooperation protocol last week with the Social Housing Fund and Mortgage Finance Fund (MFF) to increase the share of the former in the initiative of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) to EGP 1bn, with the aim of meeting the needs of the largest segment possible of low-income groups to achieve its strategy to in funding and retail for development purposes.
The agreement was signed by Maged Fahmy, the chairperson and managing director of the bank, with Mai Abdel Hameed, the CEO of the MFF, in the presence of the senior advisor to the World Bank and a group of leaders of both the bank and the fund.
This protocol is the third of its kind between the IDBE and the MFF. The first protocol was signed in May 2014 to approve EGP 250m, as a start of mortgage finance within the initiative of the CBE with an interest rate of 5-7%, and a repayment period of 20 years. This amount increased, in accordance with the second protocol in November 2017 to EGP 500m.
According to Fahmy, the IDBE was one of the first banks participate in the initiative of the CBE to fund low and medium-income groups, as a contribution to support Egyptian citizens and implement the bank’s ambitious strategy in funding and retail for development purposes, through mortgage finance and delivering natural gas and water to households, in addition to national projects, such as commodity exchange, Roubiki City, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Fahmy pointed out that the bank has managed to achieve success in the field of mortgage finance by funding 5,220 low-income clients with a total value of EGP 529m, ranking fifth among Egyptian banks and banks working in Egypt in the field of mortgage finance.
For his part, Hamdy Azzam, the vice chairperson of the bank, pointed out that signing the new protocol with the fund is an application of the financial inclusion concept and a guarantee to create communication with low-income groups, especially after the bank has recently contracted to deliver natural gas to 375,000 residential units, with most of them being social housing units, in order to facilitate the access to gas for the largest number of citizens.
Azzam stressed that the bank has achieved rapid rates in the sector, as it funded 225 clients in 2015 and took the number to 970 in 2016, then to 2,056 in 2017 and 5,220 clients until the first half of 2018. Additionally, there are 1,000 files under study of clients distributed in several new cities.
According to Ayman Mohamed, the manager of retail banking and mortgage finance in the bank, signing this protocol is an extension of the bank’s strategy, which mainly aims to reach the low-income segment and play a developmental role in the society, as well as alleviate burdens on the state’s back.
Mohamed added that the bank has achieved great success in the sector or mortgage finance, as it provided funding worth EGP 194m in 2016, and the amount increased to EGP 222m in 2017, then soon to EGP 529m in the first half of 2018, which guarantees that the administration of mortgage finance in the bank has exerted a great effort, since its establishment in February 2014 until now.
