NMRC Unveils Innovative Mortgage Market System

Bennett Oghifo

The Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company Plc (NMRC), the leading mortgage market underwriter of long-term financial instruments in Nigeria’s financial markets, has launched a ground-breaking Mortgage Market System (MMS) to enhance the efficiency of processes and costs in the entire Nigerian housing finance ecosystem.

The MMS is an end–to–end solution which integrates the entire housing value chain ecosystem, from land and titling to construction finance, to primary mortgage origination and administration to secondary mortgage market refinancing.
According to NMRC’s MD/CEO, Professor Charles Inyangete, the launch of the MMS signals NMRC’s drive to remain at the leading-edge of market innovation to promote home ownership in Nigeria.

He said by adopting a value chain approach to its operations NMRC enhances standardisation of processes and the efficiency of systems and processes of stakeholders in the market. “By enabling the seamless integration of stakeholders and their business processes and systems the new MMS is arguably perhaps the most advanced mortgage origination and refinancing system in the world.”

NMRC’s Executive Director, Corporate Strategy and Partnerships, Dr. Chika Akporji added that the MMS is part of NMRC’s continuing contribution towards the growth and deepening of the mortgage market in Nigeria. It has already standardised the process of mortgage origination and administration through the publication of its ground-breaking Uniform Underwriting Standards. Enhancing the efficiency of systems and processes reduces cumbersome processes by delivering costs reduction to the consumer, and making housing more affordable.

In his demonstration of how the MMS works, the Project Lead, Mr. Taofeeq Olatinwo, revealed that aside from market integration the MMS platform would enhance cost and operational efficiency and effectiveness throughout the value chain by improving turnaround for mortgage processing and documentation. The system is based on 3S’s – standardisation, simplification and sharing. Mr. Olatinwo noted that the depth of the system’s capabilities further positions it as a tool for addressing fraud in the mortgage origination and administration processes.

Ultimately: housing finance, savings, payment, and monitoring will be more accessible through mobile devices using the MMS System application. This will bring more transparency and confidence to the housing market for buyers, investors and all the stakeholders.

Analysts also noted that the introduction and adoption of the Mortgage Market System enhances the agility and business environment for mortgage improvement as the platform will provide greater availability of data for business analytics to drive policy and decision making as well as credit penetration.
NMRC has already embarked on an extensive training programme of participating mortgage banks on the deployment of the MMS platform for efficient collaboration between NMRC and its participating institutions.

The Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC) is a private sector-driven mortgage refinancing company with the public purpose of promoting home ownership for Nigerians while deepening the primary and secondary mortgage markets. Its vision is to be the dominant housing partner in Nigeria, with a mission to break down barriers to home ownership by providing liquidity, affordability, accessibility and stability to the housing market in Nigeria.

NMRC raises long term funds from the capital market, to enhance access to affordable housing finance in Nigeria. NMRC was incorporated on 24th June 2013 and obtained its final operating license from the Central Bank of Nigeria on 18th February 2015.

In July 2015, NMRC successfully issued a 15-year N8 billion Series 1 Bond under its N140 billion medium term Note Programme, backed by an unconditional Federal Government of Nigeria guarantee. This is being deployed to the refinancing of the mortgage portfolio of member Primary Mortgage Banks (PMBs).
According to the Chief Executive Officer, NMRC, Prof. Charles Inyangete, “Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC) was licensed on February 18, 2015 with the objective to bring Nigerians affordable housing.
“Our key role is mortgage refinance which we do by raising funds from the capital markets for the mortgage industry in Nigeria through our participating mortgage banks, so more Nigerians can own their own homes.”

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