BMI Launches Housing Savings Account

Bank Melli Iran has launched a special housing scheme to increase people’s purchasing power and help the sector. According to BMI’s CEO, the bank offers two types of housing plan, which differ in terms of the amount of investment and interest rate. “Applicants of the first type will acquire a priority bond for receiving home loans for every investment of 182 million rials ($4,117) that they keep in their account for a month and each bond will fetch a loan worth 5 million rials ($113) with an interest rate of 17.5%,” Mohammad Reza Hosseinzadeh was also quoted as saying by IBENA. This is while the investment amount in the second type of scheme is 223 million rials ($5,045) but its interest rate has been set at 12%. This marks the first formal entry of a lender other than Bank Maskan into the housing sector after the Central Bank of Iran authorized it in 2015.