Central Bank: Egyptian financial technology companies attracted $800 million in investments

The Financial Technology Perspective report issued by the Central Bank of Egypt showed that Egyptian emerging financial technology companies succeeded in attracting investments estimated at approximately $800 million during the past year 2022.

 Of this, $437.7 million is the value of investments pumped into the stocks of Egyptian startup companies working in the field of financial technology, and $358.8 million is venture capital investments.

Emerging financial technology companies

$241.1 million was pumped in indirect investments by banks, infrastructure providers, and payment system operators into funds, fund of funds, or business accelerator programs, and $49.2 million was pumped as direct investments made by banks, infrastructure providers, and payment system operators in technology startups. Finance.

He explained that the number of emerging financial technology companies in the Egyptian market has increased more than five-fold during the last five years, from 32 companies in 2017 to 177 companies in 2022, and 30% of those companies have expanded into foreign markets.

Financial technology

As part of the Central Bank of Egypt’s interest in spreading awareness in the fields and applications of financial technology and innovation across the younger generations in Egypt, the Central Bank launched the Finyology initiative, which provided training courses for 6,840 Egyptian university students with the participation of 25 universities and 18 banks, where university youth were able to present 540 prototypes. For projects specialized in financial technology.

The Central Bank also launched the “Finters” initiative, which aims to reach financial technology entrepreneurs residing in the regions and provide them with the necessary training support.

Digital payment services

The report indicated that the Central Bank succeeded in achieving a boom in digital payment services in the Egyptian market, as the number of electronic payment cards increased to more than 62 million cards, the number of electronic points of sale to more than 1.2 million points of sale, and the number of automated teller machines to approximately 23,000 thousand machines, the number of mobile phone wallets to more than 36 million, and the number of InstaPay application customers to more than 6.2 million customers.

As for the Central Bank’s efforts in the field of payment, the Central Bank’s efforts in the field of payment extended to include the launch of the Digital Meza system for mobile phone wallets, with the aim of achieving interoperability for all mobile phone wallets and facilitating the completion of financial transactions.

The Central Bank also launched the national payment system for cards “Meeza” in order to provide financial services to citizens at reasonable prices with the aim of achieving financial inclusion, as well as the national system for instant payments (Instant Payment Network (IPN) in March 2022, which is one of the most important infrastructure projects for payment systems that it sponsors. The Central Bank of Egypt, which was designed to be an alternative to cash payments and to provide all transfer services to customers in real time, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.

Real-time payments network services

He explained that the second phase of the real-time payments network services and the “InstaPay” application was launched by providing bill payment services, which is a qualitative leap in enhancing financial inclusion and citizens’ greater reliance on electronic payment methods. The application provides services, transferring funds to various accounts, cards, and electronic wallets. Inquire about Account balance and obtaining a brief statement of account. Paying electricity, water, water, and telephone bills and charging the mobile phone balance. Donating funds to various agencies, institutions, and charities.

Encouraging

With regard to the efforts of the Central Bank of Egypt to encourage digital transformation and cybersecurity, the first sectoral center in Egypt was established, established and launched to respond to computer emergencies for the financial sector, and the Central Bank of Egypt succeeded in establishing and launching the first sectoral center in Egypt for computer emergency response to the financial sector, in order to Coordinate and lead cyber protection efforts at the banking and financial sector level in a coordinated manner, enhance cyber incident response and recovery activities, and share and analyze security information.