KARACHI, May 3: The House Building Finance Corporation (HBFC) is going to transform itself into ‘multi-product’ company by entering into leasing business and some other modes of investments, official sources said here on Friday.

The corporation has already approached the Ministry of Finance with a proposal, and once the approval is received the same will be sent to the Law Ministry for vetting, the sources said.

The expansion would require amendment in the law, a high official of the HBFC said.

The HBFC’s board of directors has already given its approval and consent for expanding corporation’s financing operations by introducing new products which could match with the products being offered by private and foreign institutions, the official added.

The leasing or ‘Ejarah’ is also Shariah-compliant and would be launched by the corporation in the urban centres of the country where 20 per cent of population lives in rented premises, he added.

The corporation is also developing other investment modes of specific nature and one of them, an investment instrument, the HBFC official said, would be offered to the youth.

The corporation, which has so far remained a ‘one product’ company, seems to be finding it difficult to survive in an efficient and customer-friendly environments created by private and foreign financial institutions and banks, the sources said.

There is a growing realization at the top level of the corporation that if the HBFC has to survive a ‘culture change’ has to be made in its working.

“There is an urgent need for adopting modern techniques for inducing the employees to improve their efficiency and make the entire working of the corporation customer-friendly, the managing director HBFC, Sohail Osman Ali told Dawn.

He said awareness is being created among the employees of the corporation that the HBFC investment scheme may be cheapest in the market but as long as it does not provide efficient and customer-friendly environments it could not market its product.

Sohail said for the first time in the corporation’s history investment targets have been sought from regional offices instead of imposing head office decision on them.

The newly-launched ‘Ghar Aasan Scheme’, which is Shariah compliant investment scheme on the basis of ‘Diminishing Musharaka’, he said, has not given satisfactory results in the presence of home loans being given by other institutions in the private sector.