1,308 Bahraini families benefited from home finance
In a bid to ensure the speedy disbursement of housing loans, Eskan Bank yesterday announced that it had issued over BD37.8 million housing loans by mid-December this year, a senior government official in a statement said yesterday.
The Housing Minister Shaikh Ebrahim bin Khalifa Al Khalifa in a statement said that as of December 16, over 1,308 Bahraini families benefited from Bank Eskan's housing loans issued for the construction, refurbishment and new buildings.
Bank Eskan's total loan portfolio rose to BD46.6 million at end of November 2007, an increase of 24.5 per cent compared with the same period last year's BD 37.4 million. Since 2002, the bank had issued total BD 207.1 million and number of Bahraini families who benefited from this scheme reached 10165.
Tariq Al Jalahma, the head of the operations and finance at the bank said that the bank established three hotlines to cater for the needs of the new applicants.
"In addition to the hotlines Bank Eskan has also appointed highly trained staff to entertain and process the new loan applications. The new system is aimed to ensure the speedy compliance and effective processing of all applications within minimum possible time. The bank is also planning to introduce SMS text service in addition to using the postal services to get back to the applicants during the processing period."
He added: "There are nine documents required to process a new loan application as the availability of all documents will make the processing more effective and less time consuming. The new applications can be submitted with the assistance of the bank's staff."
Last month Eskan Bank and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to support the mortgage guarantee system (MGS) that the Bank has developed lately, and has been approved by the cabinet.
The agreement was sealed by Murad Ali Murad the Deputy Chairman of Eskan Bank along with Chief Executive Officer of CMHC Pierre David.
The MoU will help to share and exchange experiences and to enable Eskan Bank to benefit from the experience of CMHC, which is a Canadian National Organisation fully owned by the Canadian Government and has a wealth of experience that extends to more than 60 years in the Residential Mortgages field.
In addition, Eskan RMBS Company had issued BD30 million worth of conventional residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) in Bahrain's capital markets representing the first RMBS bonds to be issued in the country and potentially the first of its kind in the region to add depth to the Kingdom's debt capital market.
Eskan RMBS Company has been incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary of Eskan Bank for the purpose of issuing the RMBS backed by a pool of social mortgage loans distributed by Eskan Bank to eligible Bahraini citizens.
The RMBS, carrying maturities of three, five, seven and 10 years, were 1.74 times subscribed by local investors comprising financial institutions, insurance companies and Government-linked funds. These include BBK, the Pension Fund Commission, General Organisation for Social Insurance, National Bank of Bahrain, Ahli United Bank and SICO.
By Mahmood Rafique Business Correspondent
© Bahrain Tribune 2007
