KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 9 — The Association of Banks in Malaysia (ABM) has strongly refuted allegations regarding the hardships of house buyers to get housing loans as per reported in a local news daily recently.
In a statement today, ABM said, the article, titled ‘More developers helping homebuyers with their downpayment’ on September 20, 2017, also alleged that the loan approval time was increasing.
The association wished to state that inaccurate statements could cause confusion among the public and create a biased perception on issues pertaining to housing loans in general.
“Banks have always been supportive in providing home loans to eligible borrowers. The overall housing loan approval rates remain high at 73 per cent of the applications in the second quarter of 2017. Further, 72 per cent of the housing loan borrowers are first-time house owners under the affordable home category.
“For the first eight months of 2017, commercial banks approved over RM42.2 billion and disbursed approximately RM39.5 billion in loans for the purchase of residential properties. Financing therefore remains available for eligible borrowers,” it said.
ABM said its member banks took an average of two to nine working days to process a housing loan application with complete documentation submitted by the applicant, which also applied to appeal cases.
“An applicant who does not submit complete documentation will cause a delay in the approval process. For unsuccessful applicants, they are generally informed of the status of their applications within one to two working days.
“Therefore, the 60 to 90 days taken for loans approval as stated by Real Estate and Housing Developers Association are not reflective of the speedy approval process of housing loans by banks,” it said. — Bernama
