National Housing Bank established the Asia Pacific Union for Housing Finance (APUHF) in 2009-10 as an international platform dedicated to sharing knowledge and fostering cooperation in advancing the housing finance sector, with a particular emphasis on affordable and energy-efficient housing. From 2009-10 to 2013-14, APUHF organized several well-received international conferences and events, which became valuable forums for exchanging insights, best practices, and experiences from diverse countries.

APUHF aims to facilitate the exchange of ideas among South Asian nations, supporting policy development, strategic initiatives, and the creation of innovative instruments and products for low-income housing and housing finance markets. This platform shall function as a knowledge-sharing and networking hub, promoting collaboration and coordinated efforts among South Asian countries as they address regional housing and finance challenges. In addition, the platform shall regularly feature events and developments relevant to the housing sector in South Asia. APUHF and NHB shall also keep track of the global housing markets.

National Housing Bank (NHB), India's apex institution for housing finance, was established through an Act of Parliament and is responsible for promoting and developing the housing finance sector nationally.

NHB is actively working on Asia Pacific Union for Housing Finance (APUHF); to establish it as the leading platform for information exchange and collaboration in housing finance, especially at a time when the sector faces common challenges across borders, such as low penetration among affordable and low-income segments and difficulties in delivering formal housing credit at reasonable rates to the targeted segment.

In this renewed role, NHB envisions APUHF as a key partner for all participating institutions, leveraging collective experience to devise effective solutions for shared problems. The Secretariat of APUHF is hosted within NHB’s Head Office in New Delhi, reinforcing NHB's central role in facilitating knowledge exchange, coalition-building, and coordinated action among South Asian and Asia-Pacific countries in the housing finance sector.

The housing landscape worldwide had undergone tremendous change over the past few decades, with the focus shifting from mere supplying of houses to a more holistic and solution-based approach straddling the entire spectrum, both on the demand as well as supply side and covering all socio-economic segments, with an impetus on overall sustainability.

Thus, the housing markets today, be in any country or of any size, almost uniformly exhibit certain common characteristics, albeit in varying degrees. These characteristics include a reasonably developed or fast developing primary mortgage market with the ability to offer customized and targeted products and services, reasonably high number of market players catering to various segments of the market, responsive regulation and supervision bring greater transparency and higher level of consumer protection, leveraging of technology - both traditional and emerging - to address the issues of accessibility and affordability, and increased focus on sustainability-driven growth.

In this era of interconnectedness and all-round symbiosis, knowledge and experience sharing across geographies and economies assumes a higher significance than ever before. There exists a state of urgency today in addressing the various problems faced by humanity, brought on by increased population levels, the precarious balance of nature, and our duty to bestow on our future generations a world better than the one we inherited.

The International Conference on "Evolving Landscape of Housing Finance" - inclusivity, stability and sustainability is an initiative of the Asia Pacific Union for Housing Finance and the National Housing Bank, India, to bring together, on one platform, all stakeholders, for knowledge & experience sharing and networking, to ensure that the best practices and groundbreaking initiatives from across the world are disseminated among everyone, so that the goal of Housing for All becomes a reality.