EMFP Takes Full Effect August 1

The new financing framework of the National Housing Trust (NHT) – the External Mortgage Financing Programme (EMFP) – will take full effect on August 1.

This policy will replace the organisation’s existing Joint Finance Mortgage Programme.

It aims to increase the NHT’s mortgage supply while simultaneously releasing funds that will be reinvested in housing construction.

“For the customer, there is no difference between the two programmes. The key difference is between the NHT and the financial institutions,” Senior Finance Manager of the Trust, Dwight Ebanks, said at a Jamaica Information Service (JIS) Think Tank, recently.

Under the current pari-passu arrangement, the NHT provides the funds to cover customers’ mortgage benefits upfront to its financial partners.

However, the NHT will no longer remit funds to the financial institutions under the new programme.

“The institutions will use their own funds to lend to the customers at the NHT rate. To facilitate that, the NHT will provide a monthly subsidy to the institutions over the life of the mortgage in order to compensate them for a market return,” the Senior Manager explained.

Additionally, NHT contributors will be able to access their NHT benefits from the Trust’s financial partners.

“One of the key considerations in designing the programme is that our customers feel very minimal impact from this movement. The programme is designed to ensure that our customers get the best service from the financial partners,” Mr. Ebanks said.

The NHT is expecting all its financial partners to come on board the EMFP as well as new entities.

This means that contributors will have a larger pool of financial institutions to choose their preferred funding partner. These include banks, credit unions and building societies.