Loan approval and disbursement for the government’s flagship markup subsidy scheme, commonly known as Mera Pakistan Mera Ghar (MPMG), continued to pick up, showed latest data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

Since the launch of the scheme, applications of Rs276.14 billion under MPMG have been received by banks and with approval worth Rs117.13 billion up till December 31, 2021.

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Similarly, the pace of disbursement under MPMG that was initially slow has also picked up. By December 31, 2021, disbursement under the scheme reached Rs38 billion, while in the same month Rs9.26 billion was disbursed, the highest monthly disbursement.

In a statement, the SBP said that financing to housing and construction and particularly under MPMG has witnessed impressive growth on the back of many enabling regulatory measures introduced after extensive consultation with stakeholders. Further, SBP also advised the banks to increase their housing and construction finance portfolios to at least 5% of their domestic private sector advances till December 2021, introducing a set of incentives and penalties to ensure compliance."

On average, to date, banks have approved 42.48% of the amount applied while 32.4% of the approved amount has been disbursed.

These approval and disbursement ratios have similarly risen over the past few months as banks have put in place the needed upfront investment in procedures and technology to process applications for low-cost housing.

Bank Alfalah emerged as the leading bank with highest disbursement of Rs3.3 billion followed by nine banks with disbursements of over Rs2 billion each. These include Meezan Bank, Bank Islami, National Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, HBFCL, United Bank, MCB Bank, Bank of Punjab and Habib Bank.