Published: 23 August 2017

The People's Own Savings Bank (POSB) has launched a mortgage finance division as it spreads its products to increase revenue streams and consolidate its market.

The new division seeks to finance housing solutions for the low to medium income earners acquire housing across the country.

This comes after POSB was granted silence by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in February to provide mortgage finance to the market.

Mortgage and Property Development manager Mr Austine Ratsauka said the division will also cater for the diaspora market with products such as the ordinary mortgage, equity based mortgages and scheme tailored mortgages.

He said the biggest challenge in mortgage financing, especially for the lower end market, was affordability gap which he said the POSB sought to address.

"The biggest challenge is affordability gap. But as POSB, we want to bring the cost of housing to as low as possible.

"We can achieve this through partnering and collaborating with all stakeholders in the housing delivery industry," said Mr Ratsauka.

POSB has a huge clientele base comprising of pensioners and other low-income earners, while it caters for other markets. As of March 30, 2017, its customer base increased to 692 000 from 679 000 as at the end of December 2016.

But this is a far cry from the around three million customers in 2015.
- BH24

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