At a glance

Affordable and social housing is substantially funded by our members, both through direct investment in housing associations as developers, and through provision of residential mortgages to support the purchase of housing association homes.

Housing associations are subject to strict regulation through frameworks and approaches which focus on governance and financial health, as well as customer/tenant services and standards.

The robustness of regulation gives funders the confidence they need to continue to invest in the sector and helps ensure that associations identify and manage risk appropriately.

At a glance

Affordable and social housing is substantially funded by our members, both through direct investment in housing associations as developers, and through provision of residential mortgages to support the purchase of housing association homes.

Housing associations are subject to strict regulation through frameworks and approaches which focus on governance and financial health, as well as customer/tenant services and standards.

The robustness of regulation gives funders the confidence they need to continue to invest in the sector and helps ensure that associations identify and manage risk appropriately.

Our position

UK Finance calls on the UK's national governments to deliver:

• Robust regulation, which emphasises economic health, and is sufficiently well resourced, independent, credible and able to provide clear, consistent and calibrated judgements on both the financial viability and governance of registered provider associations.
• A policy environment which is favourable to new and existing private investment and does not expose funders to increased risk or undermine the value of existing security portfolios.
• Certainty in relation to public funding, including grant and rent setting.
• The stable implementation of welfare reform in a way which does not undermine the financial viability of housing association businesses or threaten the creditworthiness of the sector.

Why this is important for lenders

Private funding of housing associations is an important part of the commercial lending and investment activities of a range of financial institutions including banks, capital market investors and pension funds - all represented in the membership of our Social Housing Committee.