Bank Maskan Ready to Issue MBS Worth $240m

EghtesadOnline: Iran’s agent bank of the housing sector has notified the Central Bank of Iran that it is ready to start the second phase of issuing mortgage-backed securities on a significantly larger scale, as the total value of offered bonds has been more than tripled to 10 trillion rials ($240 million).

News ID: ۷۸۰۷۷۶

13 December 2017

According to Bank Maskan’s official website, after the first phase of issuing MBS in the last fiscal year (ended March 20, 2017) proved successful, the bank is now ready to cash in on the interest of bond purchasers for the second initiative.

The first phase of Bank Maskan's MBS, worth 3 trillion rials ($71 million), was offered by its investment arm i.e. Maskan Investment Bank in July 2016 and was subscribed immediately.

Bank Maskan’s measure to sell securities is part of the Iranian government’s macro plan to issue 400 trillion rials ($12.7 billion) worth of securities to revamp the country’s financial sector, Financial Tribune reported.

Iran’s capital market regulator aims to develop a vibrant market for mortgage-backed securities to stimulate the debt market and spur the sluggish construction industry.

This is while the bank also managed to improve the transparency of its financial statements for the last fiscal year by drafting them in line with the regulations of International Financial Reporting System.

In order to increase the reliability of its financial statements, the bank has always presented documents from independent auditors and legal inspectors right on time.

Performance

According to the bank’s website, during the last fiscal year, Bank Maskan managed to lower the cost of its resources by attracting cheap deposits and adhering to CBI’s limits for the cost of resources. Hence, the rate of its attracted resources by the end of the year declined by 3.2% to reach 19.1%.

Bank Maskan has also managed to prevent any overdraft from CBI’s resources during the period while the bank has totally complied with CBI’s directive to cut the interest rate of deposits.

As per the budget law for the current fiscal, Bank Maskan benefited from a recapitalization of 100 trillion rials ($2.37 billion). However, half the sum was injected into the bank during the final days of the aforementioned fiscal.

Bank Maskan has the lowest non-performing loan ratio, which is about 2%. In fact, the issuer of these securities is among Iranian banks not affected by international sanctions.

Iran’s main housing mortgage bank has also established a centralized financial system in all central branches to control the financial areas both directly and indirectly.

The bank has also launched a comprehensive central account system to identify and manage documents that will significantly increase the bank’s financial transparency and reduce the grounds for corruption in the banking system.

Connecting to the country’s registration system has been another positive measure of the bank to improve the health of executive offices.

Noting the benefits of using new systems of e-banking and offering new banking services to customers, Bank Maskan has taken notable measures and met its target for POS transactions for the last fiscal year.

During the aforementioned year, Bank Maskan’s online customers constituted 21% of the total number, which indicates that the bank has also achieved its goal in this regard.