•CEO says mortgage bank’s policies yielding results
CHIGOZIE AMADI
The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) has announced a record disbursement of N12.18 billion in National Housing Fund (NHF) refunds to retiring or exiting subscribers within a 10-month period.
Managing Director and Chief Executive of the FMBN, Shehu Osidi, disclosed this when he led the bank’s top management as part of the team of the Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development that appeared before the Senate Committee on Lands, Housing, and Urban Development.
At the interactive session which was to review the ministry’s 2024 budget performance and 2025 estimates, Osidi said out of the over N91.1 billion refunded since inception, over N12.1 billion was recorded within a 10-month period, especially since his appointment in February 2024.
The feat, according to a statement from the bank, was achieved between January and October 2024, representing more than 13 per cent of the total recorded NHF refunds since the inception of the scheme in 1992.
He said this was a result of process improvements introduced in the bank by the new management to improve turnaround time and ensure speedy approvals and disbursements.
“When we came onboard, we made it clear that one of our major priorities was to ensure prompt service delivery to our subscribers and customers. If you look at our seven-point agenda, process automation and organisational/employee performance management are two key components of our management’s focus.
“We are leveraging technology and ensuring that staff of the bank can deliver on their responsibilities promptly and efficiently through continuous capacity building and motivation,” he said.
On the bank’s adoption of the Core Banking Application which he said is almost 100 per cent completed, he noted that this has led to improved service delivery, ensuring that interactions with customers are timely and transactions are completed within the shortest possible time.
“We will not relent and there’s no room for complacency. We realise that we are not there yet, but we will continue to leverage innovations and technologies that make our work better. I always say that without the subscribers, there will not be an FMBN, so it is important to offer them excellent services and ensure their housing needs are met quickly and adequately within the scope of our mandate,” he added.
Speaking on other performance indicators of the bank, Osidi said a total of 166,926 new contributors were registered to the NHF scheme within the same 10-month period, bringing the total number of registered contributors to 5,858,136 since inception.
The FMBN, he said, has recorded a total of N455.13 billion loan disbursements since inception, out of which N29.5 billion was disbursed between January and October 2024. This, Osidi said, includes more than N12 billion disbursed under the rent-to-own scheme.
“We have also achieved NHF compliance by 35 states and the FCT, provision of housing for civil servants through the Federal Integrated Staff Housing (FISH) programme, process automations to eliminate bottlenecks, update of the bank’s financial records, and so on,” he noted.
The NHF scheme is a contributory scheme requiring Nigerian workers to contribute 2.5 per cent of their monthly income in order to qualify for housing loans up to N50 million at single-digit interest rates of 6 per cent to 9 per cent after consistently contributing for up to six months.
A contributor can benefit from any of the bank’s products, including NHF Mortgage Loan, Individual Construction Loan, Rent-to-Own, Home Renovation Loan, and the soon-to-be-released Rental Assistance Loan and NHF Diaspora Mortgage Loan products.
There are also windows for construction finance through the Estate Development Loan, Cooperative Housing Development Loan, Ministerial Pilot Housing Scheme, among others.
The peculiarity of the NHF scheme is that contributors to the scheme are able to retrieve all their contributions as refunds plus 2 per cent interest upon retirement from active service or when they turn 60 years of age, whether or not they benefited from the scheme.
