Housing Savings Accounts Exceed 163,000

Bank Maskan has opened more than 163,000 housing savings accounts with an average deposit of 230 million rials ($6130), with the total deposits amounting to 36 trillion rials ($960 million), a board member of Bank Maskan said.

“The average number of housing savings accounts stands at 635 per day and it is improving,” Abolqasem Rahimi Anaraki was also quoted as saying by Fars News Agency. However, he noted that the growth in deposits will neither decrease the waiting time for applicants nor increase the loans’ ceiling since in the first step “we need to assess our performance and then determine the loans’ ceiling”.   

Asked about which provinces had shown more interest in the scheme, the official said they have a model for determining the target group of loans provided by the Central Bank of Iran, which dictates that 25% of the total loans go to Tehran, 50% to provincial capitals and cities with a population of over 200,000 people and the remaining 25% are extended to other cities.

A scheme devised to promote home ownership for first-time buyers, the housing savings account requires applicants to make an initial deposit and wait for a year to be eligible for the loan.

In Tehran and other big and small cities, the amount of loan has been set at 800, 600 and 400 million rials respectively ($25,600, $19,200 and $12,800).