The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, FMBN, is seeking about N500 billion recapitalisation to reposition and to attract more investments in the housing sector.

The Managing Director of the bank, Ahmed Dangiwa stated this on Monday while speaking with State House correspondents after a meeting with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

Follow up meeting
Dangiwa said the meeting was a follow up to the request of the management of the bank to recapitalise and to brief the vice president on the activities of the bank.

“We have to seek recapitalisation because even commercial banks have recapitalised overtime. We have been recapitalised over time; N5 billion has been the share capital of the bank but only N2.5 billion has been paid; even other private mortgage banks that solely depended on us have been recapitalised by over N5 billion. With the recapitalisation, we will attract investment both local and informal, over 10 times of that investment and it is going to reposition the bank properly,” he said.

He said that he also briefed the Vice President on the“ The Rent-to-Own Scheme” of the FMBN as well as on the Introduction of Equity Contributions by the National Housing Fund, NHF, which the bank has commenced.

According to him, under the Rent-to Own Scheme, “you don’t need to have any equity contribution and secondly, you enter into the house as a tenant and over years, it becomes your own just like owner occupier basis.”

Dangiwa said the scheme would reduce the debt turnaround time, while off-takers would not need to go through any private mortgage bank for the loan.

“You just find the estate that you want and you enter there in collaboration with your employer and then the house becomes your own,” he said, adding that the scheme has started already.

Dangiwa said that the FMBN has funded estates in over 20 states of Nigeria, explaining that contributors to the NHF could go and choose a house they want within those estates after which the FMBN offices in the states would then profile the person and send the information to the head office for approval.

He said the bank has committed over N65billion to the scheme.

Dangiwa stated that the Vice-President appreciated the efforts of the bank and promised to take the request for recapitalisation to the National Economic Council meeting for further deliberations.

He called on Nigerians to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the National Housing Fund, saying that there were available estates for Nigerians to go and choose houses from.