Business Desk :
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Sunday said that the authorized and paid-up capital of the Bangladesh House Building Finance Corporation (BHBFC) would be risen to Tk1,000 crore and Tk500 crore respectively to meet the growing demand once the concerned law in this regard is enacted.
“This decision has been taken in order to strike a balance between the growing demand and supply,” he said.
The finance minister was addressing a function virtually this afternoon after inaugurating the payment of BHBFC’s loan instalments through Sonali e-services.
With this service, anyone can now pay instantly the loan installments of the corporation side by side its government fixed fees and prices of all kinds of forms. The clients of the Corporation can now make payments from their own bank accounts, debit and credit cards and also from their mobile wallets through using the Sonali Bank Limited’s Sonali e-service payment gateway.
Soon after the payments, the clients would be notified about their payments and current loan situation through auto-generated vouchers and SMS.
The Finance Minister said soon after its inception, both the authorized and paid-up capital of the BHBFC was Tk110 crore each.
But, considering the growing demand for house building financing, framing of law is at the final stage at Jatiya Sangsad and once it is framed, the authorized capital of the Corporation would rise to Tk1,000 crore while the paid-up capital to Tk500 crore.
He expressed his satisfaction as the Corporation has attained unimaginable successes in all the business indicators in the last fiscal year (FY21) due to the timely steps for simplification of loan disbursement. “I hope this journey of success will continue in the coming days and thus the Corporation will brighten its image further.”
Kamal recalled that Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman restructured the BHBFC after the country’s independence to provide loan support from the government level to build houses.
Following his footsteps, the Finance Minister said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has implemented projects for providing flats to slum dwellers at an affordable price, provided house loans to the government employees, ensured shelters for the homeless and managed house loans for people of all walks of life.
Terming the introduction of the system for paying loan instalments of BHBFC through online undoubtedly as a benevolent initiative, Kamal said this would further simplify the client services. “Sonali e-service method is a unique addition to the Digital Bangladesh platform.”
Presided over by BHBFC managing director M Afzal Karim held at a city hotel, Comptroller and Auditor General Mohammad Muslim Chowdhury, Finance Division Senior Secretary Abdur Rouf Talukder, Financial Institutions Division Secretary Sheikh Mohammad Salim Ullah, SBL Chairman Ziaul Hasan Siddiqui, BHBFC Chairman Prof Dr Md Selim Uddin spoke on the occasion, among others.
