Baku, Azerbaijan, March 23
By Fikret Dolukhanov – Trend:
Kazakh Halyk Bank proposed the government to deposit money in commercial banks under 3-percent annual interest rate, Kazakh media reported, citing the bank's CEO, Umut Shayakhmetova, who announced the realization plan for the new ‘7-20-25’ state housing program.
President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed five social initiatives in early March 2018. An affordable mortgage is one of them. It will allow Kazakhs to purchase apartments on credit under 7-percent annual interest rate during 25 years with 20-percent advance payment.
“Second-tier banks (STBs) propose a simple plan: to deposit money via STBs under 3-percent annual interest rate. The margin interest rate of the bank is four percent. Resulting interest rate for the borrower will be 7 percent. In such a way, the program will allow to neatly ensure targeted use of the allocated money for the mortgage loans,” Kazakh Astana TV quoted Shayakhmetova.
She also underlined that banks can’t possibly operate without interest.
“If we become too populist and begin to talk about cancelling commissions and interest rates, then either the state will endlessly support the banks, or they will simply cease operation,” Shayakhmetova noted.