njuguna ndung ’ u : strengthening the mortgage market in kenya remarks by prof njuguna ndung ’ u, governor of the central bank of kenya, at the official launch of the housing finance current account, nairobi, 20 march 2012. * * * mr. steve mainda, hfck chairman ; mr. frank ireri, managing director, hfck ; board management of housing finance here present ; distinguished guests ; ladies and gentlemen i am very delighted to join you this evening for the official launch of the housing finance current account. the provision of current account is one of the institution ’ s key planks towards its long term vision of offering a broad range of services to its customers. ladies and gentlemen, allow me first to commend the board, management and staff of housing finance for the introduction of this new product that will go a long way in enabling the institution access affordable funds. it is noteworthy that since its incorporation in 1965, the institution has progressively grown in this very specialized market to 11 branches. i also note that as at january 2012, the institution had an impressive mortgage portfolio of ksh. 26 billion and customer deposits of ksh. 19 billion, supported by a strong capital base of ksh. 3. 7 billion. in addition, the number of mortgage accounts stood at 5, 143, accounting for about 31 % of the total banking sector mortgage accounts. this indeed shows great effort put in by the board and staff of housing finance. this is the direction we need to strengthen our mortgage market. ladies and gentlemen, the product being launched today is as a result of the policy proposals made by the central bank in year 2010 that resulted in the banking act being amended to allow mortgage finance companies to operate current accounts. this initiative was meant to facilitate attraction of large amounts of low cost customer deposits that would in turn allow such institutions to increase their lending capacity and expand operations to meet the growing demand for housing. the central bank, jointly with the world bank in june 2010, conducted a baseline survey on mortgage finance in kenya with the aim of assessing the size and obstacles to the development of the mortgage finance market. the results of the survey showed that the country ’ s mortgage finance market has more than tripled over the last five years, from ksh. 19 billion in 2006 to ksh. 61 billion in 2010, while the number mortgages in the banking sector grew from 7, 580 to 13, 803 over the same period, demonstrating great

modalities of self - reporting gis data as well as assisting you in capacity building towards usage of the datasets to inform policy and business strategies. already b & mgf has initiated a pilot in self - reporting of gis data in order to achieve sustainability and we welcome you all to participate. bis central bankers ’ speeches finally, i would like at this juncture to inform you that we have just concluded conducting the fourth round of the finaccess household surveys, 2015 and data cleaning is on - going. in this regard, we shall be inviting you to the launch of the top - line findings early next year around february 2016. we, therefore, urge you to diarise this activity as triangulation of datasets from both finaccess geospatial mapping survey, 2015 and finaccess household surveys, 2015 will provide deeper understanding of kenya ’ s financial inclusion landscape. with these few remarks, i welcome you to this breakfast event and launch the survey key findings and wish you fruitful deliberations. thank you! bis central bankers ’ speeches