Bank Maskan to Become Regional Development Bank

As part of its roadmap until the end of the second term of President Hassan Rouhani in the fiscal 2021-22, which will coincide with the turn of the Iranian century, Bank Maskan—the agent bank of the housing sector—aims to become a regional development force.

As envisioned in the roadmap document, Bank Maskan is supposed to lead the way in terms of offering financial services to housing and urban development measures as one of the main features of healthy and sustainable financing of the housing sector and transform into one of the most efficient development-specialized banks in West Asia, the news portal of the bank reported.

Bank Maskan’s CEO Mohammad Hashem Botshekan said the lender plans to realize these goals by facilitating the process of financing, allocating loans to households without homes, offering finance, banking and advisory services to builders and developers of residential units for low-income people and revitalizing distressed urban areas with medium to low populations.

Over the next four years, the bank has outlined seven strategies and 10 macro targets to reach the envisioned status in the country and the region.

The seven strategies include developing specialized retail banking, offering banking and investment services through its Bank Maskan Financial Group and working with the capital market, empowering mortgage banking, implementing the development banking model and presenting a model of specialized corporate banking to mass builders and developers.

The longstanding plan to turn Bank Maskan into a specialized development bank has yet to be realized, but it is getting closer to implementation as Ali Chegini, who heads the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development’s Housing Economic Department, said the plan is also “on the agenda of the government”.

Creating fundamental capacities through supporting the establishment of financial institutions and promoting an effective participation in housing and urban development policymaking will complete the bank’s strategies.

Its macro plans, on the other hand, include its share of financing housing and urban development, boosting the capacity of mortgaged-back securities, organizing demand in the housing sector and financially empowering households that do not own homes.

Increasing transparency and discipline, creating an educational center and developing human resources, offering wider financial, banking and advisory services to housing sector players, continuously improving corporate efficiency, improving innovation in financial services and instruments, and finally, creating uninterrupted values for all beneficiaries, especially bank customers, are also on the bank’s agenda.