Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Rami Aboul Naga has announced that coordination among relevant authorities is underway to set a clear vision and goals to prepare a national strategy for financial inclusion.
Authorities are also preparing a study for the gaps in the provided financial services, as well as a national field questionnaire to determine the financial services used by individuals and micro, small and medium enterprises.
This will be carried out in cooperation with the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics and an international agency that is expert in financial inclusion.
Aboul Naga made his remarks before the Cairo ICT 2020 PAFIX Conference and Exhibition for Financial Technology and Digital Inclusion.
The central bank’s vision to transition society from becoming less dependent on cash goes in hand in hand with the views of the National Council for Payments, headed by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The necessary legislative environment has been provided to achieve this vision, he said, citing the approval of many laws and regulations.
He pointed to the central bank’s establishment of the FinTech regulatory sandbox, which plays a major role in encouraging the launch of financial technological applications in the Egyptian market, while taking into account the requirements of maintaining the financial system’s integrity and stability.
The Egyptian economy continues to grow by 3.6 percent in the fiscal year 2020, the official stressed, driven by macroeconomic stability and the downward path of the budget deficit since 2016. He pointed out that the primary surplus reached 1.8 percent of the GDP.
The central bank has also succeeded in reducing inflation from its highest levels, which exceeded 30 percent in 2017, and the annual rate of inflation dropped to 4.5 percent in October 2020, the deputy governor stated.
PAFIX’s opening session tackled several significant issues, including legislative changes in light of digital development, the role played by the digital financial inclusion in confronting the repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic on the Egyptian market, the impact of digital transformation on the national economic growth and digital solutions to bolster financial inclusion.