National Housing Bank (NHB) :

National Housing Bank was set up in July, 1988 as the apex financing institution for the housing sector with the mandate to promote efficient, viable and sound Housing Finance Companies (HFCs). Its functions aim at to augment the flow of institutional credit for the housing sector and regulate HFCs. NHB mobilizes resources and channelizes them to various schemes of housing infrastructure development. It provides refinance for direct housing loans given by commercial banks and non-banking financial institutions. The NHB also provides refinance to Housing Finance Institutions for direct lending for construction/purchase of new housing/dwelling units, public agencies for land development and shelter projects, primary cooperative housing societies, property developers. At present, it is a wholly owned subsidiary of Reserve Bank of India which contributed the entire paid-up capital. RBI has proposed to transfer its entire shareholding to Government of India to avoid conflict of ownership and regulatory role. For this transfer, the central bank will pay RBI, in cash, an amount equal to the face value of the subscribed capital issued by the RBI. The loan portfolio of NHB at ` 33,083 crores as on 31st December 2012 is almost equally divided between the commercial banks and the HFCs.