By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief

More Nigerians would soon easily access mortgage facilities, as the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and Bankers’ Committee have commenced a fresh initiative, in collaboration with  National Pension Commission, PenCom, to make over N2 trillion mortgage available to the public.

That was one of the major decisions taken at the Bakers’ Committee Meeting, held at CBN headquarters, in Abuja yesterday.

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CBN’s Director of Banking Supervision, Mr. Ahmed Abdullahi, briefed the press, along with several bank Managing Directors, on the outcome of the meeting.

Speaking on the outcome of the meeting, Ms. Ambah Hambah, MD of FSDH Merchant Bank, said: “I want to make it clear that 25 per cent of the RSAs being made available to the RSAs holders to be able to access the 25 per cent of their RSAs as equity contribution for mortgages is a work in progress and what we are talking about today is that this is so important that we felt that CBN and the Bankers’ Committee should work with PenCom to make this a reality.

“Once it becomes a reality, you will then be able to walk up to your Pension Fund Administrators and say, ‘I would like to access 25 per cent of the RSA in my name and I would like to borrow money to build my house’.

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“Once you have that approval, of course, your first port of call will be your bank. The whole point is that it will make the banks very willing to give you mortgage because you will then be coming with a sizeable amount and you will now have a scheme in the game.

“The whole idea is that once this is done, at least, anybody who is part of the RSA scheme will very easily access mortgage loan and that alone will even attract many more people to join the scheme because the people will say we want to join the scheme because we see that those who are part of the scheme readily have access to mortgage than we do and it will have multiple effects.”

In his contribution, Akin Dawodu of Citibank, said banks would work closely to implement the Export Support Fund, ESP, to strengthen the exportation of Nigerian agricultural produce, especially cashew nuts and sesame seed .

According to him, loans granted to farmers and exporters under the scheme will be at an interest rate of 9 per cent, all charges inclusive.

The CBN Director of Corporate Communications, Mr. Isaac Okoroafor, said the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, was grateful to the committee for its support in his first term and appealed for even greater cooperation from its members in the next five years.