Menu

The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) has called on the Federal Government to increase the bank’s capital base to enable it leverage investment from local and foreign investors to provide adequate liquidity for the Nigerian housing markets. In a statement issued by FMBN's Group Head of Corporate Communications, Ahmed Abubakar, in Abuja last week, out of the bank's current capitalisation of N5 billion, only N2.56 billion was fully paid up.

Managing Director/CEO of FMBN, Ahmed Musa Dangiwa, called for a recapitalisation of the bank from the current capital base to N500 billion. According to him, the recapitalisation was necessary to strengthen the capacity of FMBN to adequately meet the demand for mortgages by Nigerian workers.

The bank also disclosed that over the last two years, a total of N75.5 billion was disbursed for 3,541 mortgages and 25,242 home renovation loans. This has substantially reduced the backlog of housing loan applications. FMBN also said it financed the construction of over 7,286 housing units within the two-year period.

Dangiwa reiterated the bank's commitment to fast-track the processing of housing loan applications to boost efforts to provide affordable housing to registered contributors under the National Housing Fund (NHF) Scheme.

“From day one, improving the turnaround time of housing loan applications has been the priority of our management because we understood quite early that it has been a big issue over the years, which has led to the accumulation of huge backlog," Dangiwa said. "When we came on board, we set out clear strategies to reduce it. And we have made decent progress.”

“While before now it used to take an average of two years to process an NHF loan, we have been able to bring this down to four months," Dangiwa said. “Of course, we are still not where we want to be, but at least we are now moving in the right direction and intend to do more.”

The bank said recapitalisation will enable it to tap the private sector, capital market and international development agencies for additional funding to deliver on its mandate for affordable and social housing provision in the country.