by Amal Nabil
Retail banking in Egypt is one of the sectors attracting the most customers as difficult financial conditions prevent many from acquiring products they need or capital for starting small businesses. The Middle East Observer discussed this issue with some retail experts from different banks.
“We recently started to focus on retail products to attract clients from different categories,” said Hamdy Azzam, a board member in the Industrial Development and Workers Bank of Egypt.
Azzam said that his bank offers personal loans to workers from both the public and private sectors, starting with EGP5,000 to EGP150,000, targeting customers who want money for education, marriage costs, or holidays purposes, with repayment periods reaching 84 months.
This week, the Commercial International Bank (CIB), one of the most prominent banks in the Egypt, stated to the Egyptian exchange that the Central Bank of Egypt agreed to a deal regarding the CIB acquisition of the Citibank retail portfolio.
The Industrial Development and Workers Bank of Egypt also offers its customers the mortgage finance service within the initiative of the Central Bank, with the mortgage portfolio equaling EGP12 million, currently financing 125 housing units, with another 100 units under study, Azzam said.
The bank has various retail products, such as car loans, but it is limited, and it is studying offering the Master Card to its clients during the coming period.
“In the SMES field, we provide loans for importing tools and machines, for which the bank signed a cooperation protocol with a social fund for development with EGP50 million,” Azzam continued.
The National Bank of Egypt also seeks to expand in retail sector activity, where the retail portfolio reached EGP31.5 billion by the end of last June, which the bank aims to raise to EGP38 billion by the end of June 2016, according to Alaa Farouk, the head of the marketing and product sector at National Bank of Egypt.
Alaa added the bank plans to save EGP1 billion in the car loans portfolio by the end of the new financial year. “We could raise the car loans portfolio to EGP1.2 billion in June compared to EGP900 million at the end of last January,” he said.
The National Bank of Egypt aims to increase the car loans portfolio to EGP2.2 billion by the end of June 2016, the value for which was EGP826 million on 30 June 2014, Farouk said.
The deposits portfolio of the bank was estimated at EGP455 billion in June 2015, compared to EGP393 billion in June 2014, with an increase of 10 per cent, with the retail at 21 per cent of the total credit portfolio.
