More than 2.5 years after launching the Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) mortgage finance initiative, 14 banks injected EGP4.12bn to finance low and middle-income housing until October 2016, according to head of the Mortgage Finance Fund (MFF) Mai Abdel Hamid. She noted that 17 banks have signed protocol agreements with the MFF, but only 14 have injected funding. In February 2014, the CBE allocated EGP10bn that has been sent to banks in the form of deposits over a period of 20 years at low interest rates. to the mortgage initiative. The shortage of affordable residential units has created a surge of illegal construction estimated at c.500,000 units over the past three years, according to the Ministry of Housing. Citizens who qualify to benefit from the programme will benefit from a yearly interest rate of 7-8%. Moreover, the CBE provided a new tranche called “distinctive middle-income”, with a decreased annual interest rate of 10.5% and a minimum wage of EGP15,000 per person and EGP20,000 per family. The unit’s price is EGP950,000. Abdel Hamid noted that Egypt needs 500,000 housing units each year, pointing out that the mortgage fund received 400,000 applications for real estate financing, of which only 52,000 were approved. The MFF spent EGP5bn of the money allocated to the CBE’s initiative, while the remaining amount will be spent by next year. The MFF has obtained funding worth USD125mn from the World Bank,  as part of a total USD500mn funding package that will be received in the coming period. The Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) Chairperson Sherif Samy said that the mortgage market grew 30% in 1Q16. He added that the total financial leasing contracts over 9M16 amounted to EGP15bn, up from EGP13bn in 2015. (The Daily News Egypt)