Banque Misr prepares to launch digital banking platform‍

As Covid-19 boosts the transition to a cashless society, the Egyptian bank plans to launch a wholly digital and standalone bank in the third quarter of 2021.

The digital bank will be a separate organization from Banque Misr. Potential customers will be unbanked people and the youth segment in Egypt. Banque Misr has already started to hire and working with consultants and tech providers. 

With the breakout of Covid-19, the Egyptian regulator has been promoting digitalization in finance by encouraging businesses and individuals to use electronic payments. Also, 1.5 million Egyptians who earn governmental support must register online to get their money.

Banque Misr's digital services usage increased remarkably during the pandemic. Users of its digital wallet almost doubled from February to 816,000 in August. Also, value of the transaction with the wallet increased from E£26 million to £E147 million. Banque Misr also started to launch a fully digitalized SME online loan. According to El Magraphy, this movement is an important milestone and SME is the most critical sector.

Akef El Magraphy, Vice Chairman of Banque Misr

It’s an important development for us and for the market. We hope to be the first digital bank to be launched and have already applied for a license.

El Magraphy thinks that working with the partners would be better than directly competing with Egypt’s fintech because of the fast pace of innovation.

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