National Bank of Egypt Secures EGP3 bln for CBE Housing Initiative

The state-owned National Bank of Egypt (NBE) decided to participate in the Central Bank’s (CBE) mortgage finance initiative.

NBE will start today the launch of its mortgage finance product to finance low-income housing projects. Accordingly, the bank has allocated EGP 3 billion to be lent to citizens qualified to buy houses at a yearly at low interest rates.

CBE announced in February that it had allocated EGP 10 billion ($1.44 billion) to finance low-income housing projects, with the aim of boosting the construction and real estate sectors.

The money will be sent to banks, in the form of deposits, over a period of 20 years at low interest rates. Low-income citizens who qualify to benefit from the programme will be lent the money at yearly interest rate of 7% to 8%.