Despite the steep inflation and currency depreciation, top executives of Pag-IBIG Fund remain confident that they can maintain the low-interestt rates of the agency’s home loans and cash loans.
Pag-IBIG Fund currently offers the best rates in its loan programs.
Pag-IBIG home loans offer the lowest rate of 3 percent per annum for loans up to P 580,000 under the Affordable Housing Program and rates as low as 5.375 percent per annum for loans up to P 6 million under the Fund’s regular housing loan program, it said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Short-Term Loans or cash loan programs known as Multi-Purpose Loan and Calamity Loan come with rates of 10.5 percent per annum and 5.95 percent per annum, respectively.
Sec. Eduardo del Rosario, chairperson of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council and Pag-IBIG Fund Board, said: “The year is not over yet but Pag-IBIG Fund already performed better than expected. There was strong demand for and availment of our housing and cash loans in the last three quarters.
“We are very confident that the rates of Pag-IBIG Fund will remain low and we don’t foresee an increase in housing interest rates in the next few years because of the strong financial standing of the Fund.
“These low rates directly benefit Pag-IBIG members and contributes greatly to the anti-poverty agenda of the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte and the BALAI Filipino program of the government’s housing sector.”
From January to September, Pag-IBIG released over P 51.76 billion to help borrowers buy 62,665 homes. Cash loans, on the other hand, amounted to P 37.42 billion which was released to more than 1.8 million borrowers.
Home loans released in the last nine months are higher by 14 percent in terms of amount released and 11 percent higher in the number of homes financed compared to the same period last year. Cash loans, on the other hand, remained steady but the number of loans approved increased 7 percent.
Pag-IBIG Fund Chief Executive Officer Acmad Rizaldy Moti said: “Aside from the strong demand for our home loan programs, our efforts to improve our home loan portfolio have paid off.
“We maintained our performing loans ratio at 90 percent even as we cater to minimum-wage earners who are shunned by banks. And because we are now more efficient, we were able to achieve double digit growth in our home loan collections.
“We collected P 41.49 billion in home loan payments from January to September.
“This is 10 percent higher than the P 37.80 billion we collected in the same period last year. Cash loan payments amounted to P 40.08 billion, which is an increase of 2 percent from 2017.”
Moti added that with such strong financial showing, Pag-IBIG Fund will again achieve record-breaking income in 2018, higher than the P 30.27 billion net income the Fund posted in 2017.