By Bisi Bamishe
The regulatory body of pension industry, National Pension Commission (PenCom) has released the list of primary mortgage banks approved to participate in the use of Retirement Savings Account (RSA) for Residential Mortgage.
Approval was given recently to 34 mortgage banks for full implimentation of acquisition of residential mortgage by RSA holders.
Out of the 34 banks, 13 require N5billion minimum capital while the remaining 21 banks require N2.5billion. Also, of the 34 approved banks, 18 are located in Lagos, 8 in Abuja and the remaining 8 are located in other states.
The approved mortgage banks in Lagos include Abbey Mortgage Bank Plc; Brent Mortgage Bank LTD; AG Mortgage Bank Plc; Centagr Savings & Loans; City Code Savings & Loans; First Trust Mortgage Bank; Global Trust Mortgage; Haggai Mortgage; Homes-Base Mortgage; Imperial Homes; Jubilee-Life Mortgage Bank; Lagos Building & Investment; Prudential Mortgage Bank and Refuge Homes Savings & Loans.
Others in Lagos are Resort Savings & Loans; Safetrust Mortgage Bank; STB Building Society; Union Homes and Mayfresh Mortgage Bank.
Aso Savings & Loans; FHA Homes Ltd; First Generation Homes; Infinity Trust Mortgage Bank; MDSL Mortgage Bank LTD; Nigeria Police Mortgage Bank and Platinum Mortgage Bank are located in Abuja.
While the remaining located in other states include; Akwa Savings & Loans Ltd and Mutual Alliance both from Akwa Ibom; Coop Savings & Loans, Oyo State; Delta Trust Mortgage Bank; Gateway Mortgage Bank, Ogun State; Jigawa Savings & Loans, Jigawa State; Kebbi State Homes, Kebbi State and Living Trust formally Omoluabi, Osun State
It will be recalled that PenCom released guidelines to allow contributors of the Contributory Pension Scheme to access part of their RSAs for payment of equity contribution for residential mortgage.
It stated that this was in line with Section 89 (2) of the Pension Reform Act 2014, which allows RSA holders to use a portion of their RSA balance towards payment of equity for residential mortgage.
The guidelines cover pension contributors in active employment, either as a salaried employee or as a self-employed person.
