CAIRO: Trend Consulting launched a new database that will publish and store information and analyze data for Egypt’s investment funds.
Show Me the Funds, the new program, analyzes data in order to provide decision support for those wishing to buy or sell investment funds.
“There are about 74 investment funds in Egypt,” said Karim Shalaby, chief executive of Trend Consulting. “Yet there is no program or website giving people full insight on the prices, performances, or when exactly they should buy or sell.”
The program includes a performance analysis of the funds as well as comparisons with general indicators that will compare the performance of the funds to each other.
There are also general indicators with calculations of risk transactions that will follow the performance of mutual funds at different time periods and collect all the data to provide users with summaries.
Catering to a “much-needed” service in Egypt, the new program, billed as the first of its kind in the country, will also shed light and identify new funds, while configuring an integrated database on the funds.
“All over the world, these kind of programs are used, yet there is nothing like it in Egypt,” said Shalaby.
Pointing out that Egypt’s investment funds alone are worth about LE 51 billion, Shalaby also emphasized that people should do their “homework” before making any kind of decision regarding their investments. This new program will help investors do just that.
“We aim to raise investment awareness among individuals and create an opportunity to educate the public on the basics of investing in mutual funds, which will be in line with the desire of regulators and organizations of the Egyptian market’s development funds,” Shalaby added.
With a new way to assess and understand investment funds in Egypt, Shalaby foresees a healthy increase in the country’s funds.
“The expected increase in the number of investment funds after the announcement of the new regulations is 100 percent,” which will increase the number of funds up to 150, he said in a press release earlier this month.
The program displays summaries, amendments, as well as identifies the system and law of the capital market for investment funds and the “dissemination” of all prices of mutual funds.
So far, according to Shalaby, Show me the Funds has been up and running for about 10 days and the feedback has been promising.
“We have about 1,800 users so far, people are following the prices of the funds… using the program,” he added.
Meanwhile, Shalaby told Daily News Egypt that this is not the only new idea the company is working on.
In order to create more awareness on investment funds in Egypt, Trend Consulting has plans to do more to educate and encourage potential investors who may not use the internet that often.
“As an extension to this platform, we are creating a printed guide that will contain all the information regarding investment funds,” he said. “The first guide is going to be an introduction, the second will contain all of the information people need to know about Egypt’s investment funds.”
Another idea that the company is launching in addition to the new online database program is an SMS alert option, which will allow users to receive weekly, monthly, or daily alerts about the performance of their investment funds via mobile.
Shalaby said the company expects that these new extensions are in the making and will eventually be up and running by the third quarter of this year.
