Middle East · GDP rank #38
Egypt
EG · EGP @ 0.0189/USD
Egypt is the Arab world's most populous economy and the region's clearest case of payments digitisation forced from above. Vodafone Cash leads a mobile-money market with 46m active wallets; Meeza, the state-backed national card scheme, sits on roughly 55% of cards in issue and is the default rail for government salary, pension and welfare disbursement; InstaPay, the CBE-operated instant rail, crossed 1.5bn cumulative transactions in 2024 and ran at ~263m transactions in Q1 2025 alone. The March 2024 float of the pound under the IMF programme redrew every cross-border line on the page and pulled remittance inflows back through formal channels.
Tab 08
Pulse
The preceding ~90 days of macro, regulation, product, funding and milestone events. Each item is primary-sourced; no trade-press echo.
- 5 days agoregulation
CBE Monetary Policy Committee holds overnight deposit rate at 24%
The Monetary Policy Committee kept the policy rate unchanged at 24% citing residual inflation pressure and elevated global energy prices. The decision continues the cautious easing cycle after the 600bp emergency hike that accompanied the March 2024 float and signals comfort with the EGP corridor.
- #macro
- #cbe
- #policy-rate
Source: Central Bank of Egypt
- 11 days agoregulation
FRA approves fintech licences for six firms across digital finance
The Financial Regulatory Authority cleared six companies for fintech-driven activities including digital money-market accounts, custody, and SME finance. Granite, Valu and CFH/Beltone are among the recipients; the cohort consolidates Law 5 of 2022 as the operating regime for non-bank consumer finance.
- #fintech
- #licensing
- #fra
Source: Egypt Today
- 3 weeks agodata
Net international reserves reach US$53.0bn — multi-year high
CBE end-April reserves hit US$53.0bn, up from US$35bn at the March 2024 float. IMF EFF disbursements, GCC bilateral support and the Ras El-Hekma development deal underpin the rebuild; the cushion gives policy further room on EGP corridor management.
- #reserves
- #macro
- #cbe
Source: Central Bank of Egypt
- 6 weeks agolaunch
InstaPay raises single-transfer cap to EGP 100,000 for verified users
The CBE raised the per-transaction ceiling for KYC-verified InstaPay users from EGP 70,000 to EGP 100,000, designed to push more merchant-payment use cases onto the rail. Daily and monthly limits are unchanged for the standard tier.
- #instant-payments
- #instapay
- #cbe
Source: Central Bank of Egypt
- 2 months agomilestone
Vodafone Cash crosses 25m active users on government salary onboarding
Vodafone Egypt confirmed Vodafone Cash active-user count crossed 25m in Q1 2026, anchored by Ministry of Finance public-sector wage disbursements via Meeza-linked wallets. Growth share over 2025 narrowed against Orange Cash but the absolute lead is unchanged.
- #mobile-money
- #vodafone-cash
- #meeza
Source: Vodafone Egypt
- 3 months agodata
CBE reports Q1 2025 IPN cleared EGP 1.2tn on 263m transactions
The CBE's Q1 2025 payment statistics, released February, showed the Instant Payment Network cleared 263m transactions worth EGP 1.2tn in the quarter — a ~70% YoY jump in value terms. The data confirmed InstaPay's continued displacement of small-ticket wallet flows. The fee schedule introduced in April 2025 (0.1% of value, min EGP 0.5, max EGP 20) appears to be growing wallet of usage rather than slowing it.
- #ipn
- #instapay
- #data
Source: Arab Finance
- 3 months agom&a
Paymob announces Series D extension led by EBRD, targeting MENA acquirer consolidation
Cairo-headquartered Paymob announced a Series D extension led by EBRD with PayPal Ventures and Endeavor Catalyst participating, supporting expansion into Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and additional KSA mid-market acquirer roll-ups. Paymob processes annualised volume above US$6bn across Egypt, KSA, UAE, Pakistan and Oman.
- #paymob
- #acquiring
- #mena
- #m&a
Source: Paymob