SuperFirst Mortgage Financing Program
SuperFirst was launched in 2002 against the backdrop of a fragile economy post the 2001 dot-com collapse and the SARS resulting in plummeting property prices in Hong Kong.
SuperFirst was designed initially as a “Refinancing Program” to refinance negative equity mortgage loans with with a Loan-To-Value (LTV) as high as 140%. SMP was engineered to help homeowners to reduce the high monthly repayment burden of their negative equity asset due to negative equity property values, but with rocket-high mortgage interest rates. The program was well received and Pan Asian originated five times more mortgages than our competitors which were inspired by our products. Our first participating partner banks were CITIC Ka Wa Bank (now China CITIC Bank International Limited) , Asia Commercial Bank (now Public Bank Limited) and Wing Hang Bank (now OCBC Wing Hang Bank Limited).
In 2004, SMP was modified and introduced to the conforming mortgage market. In collaboration with Wing Hang Bank (now OCBC Wing Hang Bank Limited) and the property developer of Sky Tower (傲雲峰) in Kowloon area, SMP offered mortgage loans with a LTV of up to 95% for self-use property buyers. The penetration rate of SMP in this project alone reached a high of 20%.
With the success of SMP for the Sky Tower project, other market participants quickly followed suit. Pan Asian reacted by enhancing our program with added features and created an enhanced LTV option of up to 99.9%. In 2005, another financial institution joined our SMP, Wing Hang Credit (now OCBC Wing Hang Credit Limited). This new participating bank joined forces with our existing panel of financing banks and our further collaboration with Centaline Property Agency in April 2005 had created impressive results for our mortgage origination business in the several years to follow.
The underwriting criteria of SMP were carefully revamped in 2013 in light of the change in the government’s mortgage lending regulations and policy. The underwriting criteria conforms with the prudent standards imposed by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority on our partner banks, such as debt servicing ratio, treatment of debts, ownership requirements and stressed interest rate assessments and calculation.
SMP borrowers will therefore be qualified to meet the The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) standard on mortgage underwriting, as well as Pan Asian’s internal risk assessment impositions. The firm adheres to ethical lending practices and provides mortgage solutions to our homeowners which best suit their financial affordability.
With Pan Asian’s experience and expertise over decades of mortgage origination, we strive to serve our homeowners and the community to :
- Provide Responsible Lending
- Support Affordable Borrowing
Despite the rough economy post SARS in 2003 and the global financial crisis in 2008, our SMP has demonstrated stellar performance throughout its 14 years of operating history and maintained:
- Zero drawdown slippage –100% assurance to our homebuyers;
- Zero errors on monthly distribution –100% certainty to our co-lenders; and
- Zero delinquencies on all conforming mortgage loans – 100% protection to our capital.
This record is largely attributed to the high standards of our credit underwriting and risk management processes as well as the proprietary Credit Risk Model developed at the inception of our negative equity mortgage program in 2002.
We have built partnerships with multiple local property developers providing SuperFirst program on their new projects. Click to read more about our projects.
To find out more about SMP, please visit the following website:
www.panasian.com.hk