QNB Egypt has participated in a consortium of banks to grant The Social Housing and Mortgage Finance Fund a syndicated facility for a total amount of EGP 50 billion. The facility is in partnership with the National Bank of Egypt, Banque Misr and eight banks for granting a joint financing where the National Bank of Egypt acted as the main arranger, coverage guarantor, documents bank, financing marketer and financing agent in the banking alliance that includes QNB Egypt for the purpose of financing social housing projects for low and middle income within the housing initiative for all Egyptians, which is being implemented by the fund within the Egyptian President Initiative.
The signing ceremony took place in the presence of Mohamed Bedeir, CEO of QNB Egypt, Mohamed El-Etreby, CEO of the National Bank of Egypt, Hisham Okasha, CEO of Banque Misr, Bahaa El Shafei, Deputy CEO of Banque du Caire, Hassan Ghanem, CEO and Managing Director of Housing and Development Bank, Amr El Ganainy, Deputy CEO and Managing Director of Commercial International Bank Egypt (CIB), and Tamer Wahid, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Arab African International Bank. Tamer Seif, CEO and Managing Director of Next Commercial Bank, Hussein Rifai, Chairman and Managing Director of the Industrial Development Bank, Ashraf El-Kady, CEO and Managing Director of The United Bank, Iman Abu Zeid, Corporate Banking Director at MID Bank, and Mai Abdel Hamid, CEO of the Fund. In the presence of a distinguished group of leaders of these banks and the Fund.
In this context, Mr. Mohamed Bedeir, CEO of QNB Egypt, stated that; "This banking alliance reflects the leading role played by the banking sector in strengthening strategic partnerships to achieve national goals, create more job opportunities, contribute to the growth of the economy, raise the standard of living and contribute to building modern residential communities that provide a decent life for citizens. This alliance not only represents a strategic move, but also reflects QNB Egypt's ongoing commitment to support the Egyptian Economy and meet the basic needs of citizens."
Bedeir stressed that arranging and financing a syndicated loan of EGP 50 billion for the Social Housing Fund affirms the vision and strategy through which the Egyptian banking sector is launched to advance economic development in the real estate sector, which accounts for nearly 20% of the national GDP, stressing the importance of this step in implementing social housing plans and projects, in addition to developing modern infrastructure.
Mai Abdel Hamid, CEO of the Social Housing and Mortgage Finance Fund, expressed her happiness with the agreement signing under which the Fund will receive an EGP 50 billion financing, which will play a pivotal role in helping the Fund achieve its goals to provide adequate housing for low and middle income citizens.
The CEO of the SHMFF has also indicated that this agreement would contribute to completing the financing of 304,106 housing units, in addition to the construction of 30,000 eco-friendly housing units within the "Green Architecture" initiative.
She explained that the plan is to withdraw about EGP 20 billion pounds within the financing of the budget of the current fiscal year, and the Ministry of Finance has included an amount of approx. EGP 3.2 billion pounds within the budget of the current fiscal year to pay the interest on the withdrawn amount within the allocations of Chapter Three - interest, as well as an amount of approx. 5.5 billion pounds within the provisions of Chapter Four - support and grants, which represents the value of financing entities’ compensations for the return support for approx. 299 thousands citizens of low income previously which were disbursed a mortgage financing in the past years within the framework of social protection programs.
Mai Abdel Hamid added that the SHMFF is currently cooperating with 30 financing entities; represented into 22 banks and 8 mortgage financing companies, instead of only 4 banks at the beginning of the project, and 65% of the beneficiaries of the program dealt with banks for the first time in their lives, which illustrates the great role played by the fund within the financial inclusion initiative.
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She explained that the fund is in the process of launching a new announcement for low and middle income citizens within the presidential initiative “housing for all Egyptians”, and the new offering includes about 80,000 housing units divided into immediate delivery units and delivery within 3 years units, and the new offering covers most of the governorates and new cities.
It is worth mentioning that the financing period is six years, where the participating banks shares in the financing are EGP 9.5 billion for each of the National Bank of Egypt and Banque Misr, EGP 7 billion for Banque du Caire, EGP 4.775 billion for each of the Commercial International Bank of Egypt (CIB), QNB Egypt and the Arab African International Bank, EGP 4.875 billion for Next Commercial Bank, EGP 2 billion for the Housing and Development Bank, EGP 1.4 billion for MID Bank, EGP 1.1 billion for the Industrial Development Bank, and EGP 0.3 billion for the United Bank.