Medhat Khalil, chairperson of Raya Holding, said that this year, the mother company will focus on providing developed technological solutions for the sector, as well as expanding the services offered to banks, including ATMs and self-service machines, as part of the state’s plan to achieve financial inclusion.
For his part, Hesham Abdel Rassoul, the CEO of Raya Information Technology, one of the companies affiliated with Raya Holding, said that the government is inclined towards financial inclusion, where the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) aims to attract 15 million new customers to banks, especially that the percentage of bank clients compared to the population is no more than 15%, which is a small percentage.
Abdel Rassoul said that Raya depends on the state’s plan for financial inclusion to expand in the service offered to the financial and banking sector through providing technological solutions that help increase the number of bank clients and expand in ATM services, as well as mechanising bank branches.
Abdel Rassoul revealed that the market share of Raya in the ATM and electronic payment sector was 23% last year.
Abdel Rassoul believes that the mobile payment sector will witness a leap this year, helping the state implement its financial inclusion plan.
It is expected for the National Council for Payments to introduce new rules to the electronic payments market in order to facilitate the growth of the market and increase the opportunities for spreading new services.
Medhat Khalil explained that Aman will have an active role this year in the field of electronic payment. It is expected to expand its cooperation with banks over the upcoming period, especially that the state has a plan to achieve financial inclusion.
Khalil added that Aman currently has 10,000 payment points and aims to increase that by 1,500 points every month until the end of this year. The company plans to take the number of points to 25,000 by the end of this year. “We aim to rank second by the end of this year among companies in terms of the electronic payment processes that take place through our network, where the company will be the first with its electronic payment services within three years,” Khalil said.
“We also aim to make Aman for Electronic Payment cooperate with the recently established company, Aman Financial Services, to help facilitate the procedures of instalments for individual consumers,” he added.
Currently, there are ten branches for Aman Financial Services, and they are aiming to increase to 120 by the end of 2017, at the rate of 15 stores opening per month until the end of the year.
Raya Holding has completed the procedures to establish Aman Electronic Services with a capital of EGP 100m mid last year, whereas the company sealed a deal to sell 20% of the shares of Aman Electronic Payments to the Gulf Commercial Bank (GCB).
