Riyadh - AFP
The newly launched Bidaya Home aims to raise the low levels of home ownership across Saudi Arabia.
The inaugural press conference to announce its launch was well attended by senior representatives and officials from the financial services industry, and the media.
The company will begin operations with a capital of SR900 million.
Bidaya Home Finance is a joint venture between the Ministry of Finance’s Public Investment Fund and Jeddah-based Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), which is a unit of the Islamic Development Bank.
Licensed under the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), Bidaya offers professional and reliable Shariah-compliant financial solutions to customers and partners.
Khaled bin Mohamed Al-Aboodi, chairman of Bidaya Home Finance, said: “Bidaya was established with the primary purpose of enabling home ownership. Our role as a facilitator will aim to address the economic and social issue by increasing access to finance for middle-income home buyers, and thereby significantly contributing toward the sustainability of the housing sector in the Kingdom.”
Bidaya was granted mortgage finance license by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) in December 2015. The company is stated to be the first newly established real estate finance company to be given such a license, and the SAMA approval entitles it to carry out its operations and receive customers wishing to obtain Shariah-compliant real estate finance.
“We are committed to playing our part by streamlining mortgage finance end-to-end processing, short turnaround times, using innovative mortgage technologies, and an engineered approach to evaluate customer creditworthiness, which we truly believe lies at the core of further developing Saudi mortgage market,” said Mazin bin Ahmed Al-Ghunaim, CEO at Bidaya Home Finance.
The company’s short-term goal is to open three service hubs in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam. Bidaya is also set to launch its digital presence.
Source: Arab News