Egypt banks pump 24.5 bln pounds into mortgage initiative – official

Banks in Egypt have pumped 24.5 billion Egyptian pounds ($1.5 billion) in favour of the Egyptian central bank’s low-income mortgage initiative, said the Mortgage Finance Fund’s chairperson on Wednesday.

In 2014, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) launched an initiative worth 10 billion Egyptian pounds to stimulate the mortgage sector and finance the purchase of housing for earners with low and average incomes.

“The total financing of the initiative reached 26 billion pounds, of which 1.5 billion pounds are for (housing) companies,” May Abdel Hamid told Amwal Al Ghad.

In March 2014, four Egyptian banks- named the National Bank of Egypt, Banque Du Caire, Banque Misr, and Housing and Development Bank- signed deals with MFF worth 8.5 billion pounds to finance low and average incomes’ earners at annual interest rate between 8 percent and 7 percent.

CBE has amended the mortgage finance initiative to provide an opportunity for those who earn less than 1,400 pounds per month to benefit from the initiative at a discounted annual interest rate of 5 percent instead of 7 percent.