The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has set aside N200 billion as intervention fund for Primary Mortgage Institutions (PMI), Mr Kola Durojaiye, Director of Other Financial Institutions Department in the bank, has said.

Durojaiye told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Friday that the institutions would, however, not have access to the fund until the completion of the reform in the mortgage sector.

According to him, beneficiaries of the fund are mortgage banks which meet the requirements of the reform exercise.

"CBN has a programme of N200 billion intervention fund for the mortgage industry and will come into effect after the mortgage banking reform," he said.

Durojaiye said that the apex bank had identified all issues to be addressed by the reforms since it had discovered that many of the banks had problems meeting the prudential guidelines.

The director said that a major area the reform would work on would be the documentary and standards of appraising mortgage and commercial real estate loans.

He stated that henceforth mortgage banks which would operate must have a minimum of N5 billion capital base.(NAN)