The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) and iBUILD Global have signed a significant MOU to adopt the iBUILD SaaS technology in order to increase efficiency and transparency across FMBN business processes for large scale Housing Construction projects.
Speaking on the partnership during his meeting with his iBUILD counterpart, Lew Schulman, the Managing Director of Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, Arc. Ahmed Musa Dangiwa said; “The iBUILD system is exactly the type of technology solution that we seek to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our business processes. The integration and transparency that the platform provides promises to significantly enhance efficiency in the delivery of our affordable housing services to Nigerians.”
With this partnership, iBUILD technology will be used to facilitate the distribution of FMBN Home Loan Funds to help administer developer loan funds, to enable more transparency on construction through geotagging, and to establish a transparent Digital Platform for improved collaboration and connectivity across all housing and construction stakeholders within Nigeria.
This partnership is significant for many reasons. Key among this is how it will advance the much needed transparency in the mortgage sector especially as it concerns the FMBN.
Since the coming of Ahmed Dangiwa as the MD/CEO of FMBN, stakeholders have noticed an increasing desire on his part to address perennial problems especially the lack of transparency in the management of the National Housing Fund (NHF).
One of foremost attempts to solve this was the introduction of the short code *229# to enable contributors to the fund have access to their contribution via their mobile devices.
While this is getting a lot of recommendation, FMBN has gone further to sign an MOU with an international organisation known for transparency – iBUILD Global – to see how they can bring more transparency into mortgage transactions involving FMBN and its clients, in order to enhance housing development.
In recent times, many stakeholders have also called for the digitalisation of FMBN. It is now likely that that call may be heeded with the way the new board and management of FMBN is working towards transparency in their operations.
Curbing corruption and ensuring transparency will go a long way to build the confidence of their clients, enable them deliver on their mandates and establish them as a distinguished organisation poised to delivering affordable housing for Nigerians through mortgages. No stone should therefore be left unturned in ensuring corporate governance, accountability and transparency.
FMBN functions include to provide long-term credit facilities to mortgage institutions in Nigeria; encourage the emergence and promote the growth of viable primary and secondary mortgage institutions to service the need of housing delivery in all parts of Nigeria; mobilizing both domestic and offshore funds into the housing sector; link the capital market with the housing industry’ establish and operate a viable secondary mortgage market; collect and administer the National Housing Fund in accordance with the provisions of the NHF Act; do anything and enter into any transaction which in the opinion of the Board is necessary to ensure the proper performance of its functions under the FMBN Act.
Its latest partner, iBUILD has also collaborated with other prominent African housing institutions including Shelter Afrique.
The iBUILD mobile application is a citizen-to-citizen (C2C) housing market disruption tool that empowers people to build, reversing their housing plight through small-scale construction based on each individual’s unique needs. iBUILD empowers a citizen-focused, virtual marketplace where consumers directly engage with: architects, lenders, artisans, material suppliers, and certified contractors.
iBUILD equips small scale construction markets in developing nations to scale up and to meet their exponentially growing housing demand.
The iBUILD mobile and web application is designed to lower the transaction costs of construction by providing citizens direct access to a dynamic ecosystem of competitive housing construction services and by creating transparency of transactions across all stakeholders throughout the entirety of a project. Citizen- initiated housing construction to meet unique individual needs, leveraging a local ecosystems of contractors and laborers, lenders and suppliers in a competitive marketplace, is the most cost-effective and expedient solution to stimulate construction at scale in order to address the acute affordable housing shortage.
