My First Home Scheme introduced by the government last year is not an assurance that all first-time buyers of a house priced between RM100,000 and RM400,000 are eligible for housing loan, the Senate was told today.

Instead, Deputy Finance Minister Dr Awang Adek Hussin the buyers’ eligibility for loan would depend on their financial ability and credit evaluation conducted by the banks involved in the scheme.

“The buyers still have to fulfill the basic criteria set by the banks,” he said in reply to Senator Lee Cheam Choon.

Awang Adek said as at March 2012, a total of 1,709 applications for housing loan under the scheme had been received by the participating banks and financial institutions.

However, 589 applications could not be processed due to overlapping applications at different banks, bringing the total to 1,120.

Of the total, Awang Adek said 399 or 26 percent of the applications had been approved, 529 rejected and 192 were being processed.

He said most of the rejected applications were due to the failure of the applicants to fulfill the criteria set by the banks, besides failing to meet the requirements for the scheme.

- Bernama