Expanding Housing Finance to the Underserved in South Asia

Currently, more than a billion people around the globe live in inadequate housing. One in every four people on the planet lives in the South Asia region, and more than 14 percent of South Asians have no homes or live in such inadequate housing as urban slums and squatter settlements. South Asia’s housing and housing finance markets are dynamic, but limited in their outreach, catering to upper-income groups. The impressively high growth rates of these markets give hope that housing and housing finance services have the potential to be expanded to middle- and even lower-income families. In some countries, such as India, this shift is already afoot. The challenge is that South Asia is home to about half of the world’s poor people, and these people require more complex housing solutions because existing market terms are not directly affordable for them.