The Central Bank of Egypt on Sunday announced its financial inclusion strategy (2022-2025), which aims to enhance the financial inclusion of society and achieve economic growth.
It comes within the state’s efforts to achieve economic empowerment for citizens and companies, in line with the sustainable development goals and Egypt’s Vision 2030.
CBE said in a Sunday statement that the strategy was prepared on a scientific basis, based on the results of the field survey on financial services carried out on a representative sample of individuals and medium, small and micro enterprises (formal and informal sectors).
The survey was conducted in cooperation with the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, with technical support from the European Union and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), which underscores the strategic partnership with development partners.
The financial inclusion strategy is based on four main parts that are being worked on in a sustainable way: financial education, protection of customer rights, diversification of banking and non-banking financial products according to customer needs, creating a work environment for medium, small and micro enterprises and entrepreneurs, and digital financial services.
Sustainable strategies
The strategy is being worked on in a sustainable manner, the first of which is the formulation of a plan (2022-2025), within the framework of CBE’s keenness to cooperate with all state institutions to provide banking services to all segments of society – based upon fairness, quality and appropriate cost – and empowering them economically.
It also works on the governance of supervision over banking entities in a way that supports the strength of the banking system, promotes sustainable economic growth, and contributes to following up on the evolution of the rates of access of citizens and micro, small and medium enterprises to financial services and financing by defining a set of internationally recognized indicators.
The strategy comes as a continuation and support for the efforts taken by the CBE – through its initiatives and projects – to enhance the rates of financial inclusion in Egypt over the previous years, as these rates increased from 33 percent in 2017, to 56.2 percent by the end of 2021.
