Egypt’s Central Bank launches financial inclusion strategy 2022-2025

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) launched the financial inclusion strategy (2022-2025).

“This strategy comes within the framework of the efforts made at the state level to achieve economic empowerment for citizens and companies, in line with the goals of sustainable development and Egypt’s Vision 2030,” the CBE elaborated in a statement.

The strategy was prepared on a scientific basis, based on the results of the field survey for financial services, which was carried out on a representative sample of individuals and small, medium and micro enterprises (SMEs) in cooperation with the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), and with technical support from the European Union and the German International Cooperation Agency (GIZ), according to the statement.

The financial inclusion strategy is based on four main axes that are being worked on in a sustainable manner: financial education, diversity in banking and non-banking financial products, creating a business environment for SMEs and entrepreneurs, and digital financial services.

The statement noted that the formulation of the financial inclusion strategy 2022-2025 comes within the framework of the CBE’s keenness to cooperate with all state institutions, with the aim of providing banking services to all segments of society – with fairness, quality and appropriate cost – and empowering them economically.

The strategy also aims to govern the supervision of 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 Central added in its statement.

The strategy comes as a continuation of the efforts taken by the CBE through 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.