(Photo courtesy of EMP)
The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) currently regulates 20m electronic payment cards, up from 4m in 2006, head of payment systems in the CBE Ahmed Faragallah said on Saturday during the 5th Emerging Markets Payments Conference (EMPC) taking place on 26 and 27 September in Sharm El-Sheikh.
Faragallah said that the electronic payments market in Egypt is growing, stressing that the CBE is issuing and developing regulations and standards in order to increase cards acceptance in the Egyptian market.
Central banks and regulators should build capacity to regulate e-money, e-wallets and e-value, Faragallah said, adding that the financial market in Egypt consists of 20m bank accounts and 22m accounts within Egypt Post.
Faragallah made his presentation in an EMPC panel titled the ‘Role of Government in Building Tomorrow’s Payments Ecosystems’, which included other speakers such as Deputy Governor of Operations at the Central Bank of Nigeria Suleiman Barau, and Director General and CEO of the Nigeria-based National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) Chris Onyemenam.
During his presentation, Suleiman Barau explained that central banks across the world are working to make sure that electronic payment processes are secure, efficient and affordable to banks. Barau added that the vision of financial regulators in countries is very critical in crafting a direction for the implementation of robust payment systems.
The deputy governor stressed that central banks in emerging markets are facing the challenge of shaping innovation in the market, stressing that they should apply active approaches in order to create a cashless future.
In that regard, NIMC’s Chris Onyemenam has discussed in his presentation his company’s role in establishing and regulating a sustainable system of national identity management that enables users to assert their identities in electronic transactions, with the aim of preventing identity theft.
