Housing Finance Bank has signed a partnership with Uganda Cooperative Alliance (UCA) as part of their commitment to providing affordable homeownership and financial independence for all Ugandans.
The housing deficit stands at 2.4 million housing units and Housing Finance Bank, a 100% government-owned commercial bank is championing the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11.1 agenda; to ensure that by 2030, all Ugandans have access to adequate, safe and affordable housing, basic services and upgrade slums.
The bank has now joined hands with Uganda Cooperative Alliance (UCA) to tackle the problem.
UCA is an umbrella organisation for over 23,000 registered cooperative unions and societies in Uganda. It is a nonprofit organisation promoting and supporting government efforts in achieving social economic transformation of the country through Cooperative development.
As part of this partnership, Housing Finance Bank will establish a scheme where it will offer its loan facilities, relevant bank products, and services like incremental housing, agent banking services, and agriculture loans, etc to the eligible cooperatives under the alliance.
The bank will also partner with Cooperative Insurance Company (CIC) the insurance partner of UCA to offer insurance to the bank customers with consent from the customer in accordance with regulatory guidelines.
Michael Mugabi, the managing director at Housing Finance Bank said partnerships with credible and like-minded organizations play a very important role in ensuring that Ugandans have access to affordable financing.
"One of our focus areas under the Sustainable Development Goal 11 is to drive sustainable cities and communities. For this reason, the provision of tailor-made solutions to suit our ever-changing customer needs remains in the heart of the business," Mugabi said.
He said through this partnership, the bank pledges to support SACCOs by:
- Providing affordable credit to members with emphasis on Incremental housing loans targeting the low-income earners, agricultural loans, and business loans to mainly SMEs.
- Partnering with UCA to deliver financial literacy, technical assistance, and capacity building to SACCOs and their members.
- Mitigating financial loss caused by different risks SACCOs are exposed to during their day to day running of the business by partnering with Cooperative Insurance Company (CIC- the insurance arm of UCA) to innovate solutions under our Bancassurance.
- Deepening Financial inclusion by Leveraging on UCA structures to promote other services like agent banking, Bancassurance, trading in government securities which creates alternative income streams for SACCOs.