Mexico's Fovissste on solid footing to meet lending goals

Mexican federal mortgage lender Fovissste is well on track to complete its scheduled lending for 2017 and to expand lending in 2018 with the injection of additional funds from a recent issuance of bonds.

Speaking at Fovissste's annual conference in Mexico City, executive director Luis Antonio Godina Herrera said the institution had approved 85,000 of the 97,000 applications received this year, meeting 90% of its programmed lending for the year.

Godina Herrera also said that the senior bonds issued earlier this month on the Mexican stock exchange (BMV) had garnered 6.85bn pesos (US$386mn), providing funds to ensure the lender's ability to meet the goals of its credit program this year.

"Just a week ago we announced the acquisition of complementary financing through the Mexican stock exchange for almost 7bn pesos in one of the best issuances in the history of Fovissste." The executive said Fovissste is on track to extend 112,366 loans in 2017 amounting to 37.6bn pesos - a level that should be surpassed next year.

Fovissste, which is mandated to provide affordable mortgage loans to public sector employees, is considered the second largest mortgage lender in the country, according to Godina Herrera, with a loan book of 347bn pesos.

"Fovissste means a lot to the economy of the country. [Combined] our loan book, credit program and the balance of our housing sub-account amounts to almost 2% of Mexico's GDP," said the executive. "We generate half a million direct and indirect jobs and have granted more than 1.6mn loans in 45 years."