The Mortgage Finance Fund amended the maximum annual income of applicants of the mortgage finance initiative to EGP 42,000 per family from EGP 36,000 and EGP 30,000 per person from EGP 27,000 to increase the beneficiaries' base. The amendment comes in line with the coordination between the fund and the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), which allows the fund the option to determine the maximum and minimum wages of applicants, said head of the fund Mai Abdel Hamid in a statement. "It also came in light of increasing annual inflation rates to above 11%," Abdel Hamid said. The amendments will decrease the monthly instalments that applicants have to pay. The fund also raised the maximum limit of the residential units it funds to EGP 165,000 per apartment. To attract more applicants, CBE amended some terms in the mortgage finance initiative, adding two new categories to finance individuals with a monthly income of less than EGP 1,400 and more than EGP 15,000. In February 2014, CBE announced it allocated EGP 10bn ($1.44bn) to finance low-income housing projects with the aim of boosting the construction and real estate sectors. Low-income citizens who qualify to benefit from the programme would previously be lent the money at a yearly interest rate of 7% to 8%. However the new amendments reduced this interest rate to 5%. Mortgage Finance activities have witnessed an improvement in the first nine months of 2015 as the volume of mortgage funds grew by 57% from EGP 445m in the same period in 2014 to EGP 697m, according to the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA).
