[Jonah Onyango, Standard]Kenyans will be able to purchase houses using their savings in pension schemes, as the government adds more energy into the affordable housing programme. The new regulation will enable commercial banks and Saccos to help members of a pension scheme to buy houses, treating the pension savings as security. Previously, existing law allowed retirement scheme members to allocate up to 60 per cent of their benefits towards securing a mortgage loan. However, the mortgage was never really used because banks preferred to have the actual house as security rather than the pension savings. This is due to poor savings, where many employees withdraw their allowable portion of their retirement savings when moving from one employer to another.

Source: Standard Digital September 24, 2020 06:01 UTC