The National Bank of Egypt (NBE) has allowed its customers and other bank customers to pay their tax dues and university students electronically using electronic payment cards through the bank’s website, according to Hazem Hegazy, CEO of retail banking and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), at the National Bank of Egypt (NBE).
Hegazy explained that this service comes to complement the role of the NBE in the development and modernisation of banking services provided to customers to achieve the objectives of financial inclusion and reduce the circulation of cash in the market.
According to Hegazy, the bank provides this service in coordination with E-Finance, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), the collection unit of the Ministry of Finance, and the Egyptian Tax Authority, as well as the international card issuers, Visa and MasterCard, and a number of public universities that have been contracted with.
He added that this service allows taxpayers from companies, individuals, doctors, pharmacies, and small enterprises to pay their tax dues through the bank’s website using payment cards of all kinds issued from any bank. Payments up to a maximum of EGP 100,000 are accepted, which is an important shift in the payment of tax charges.
“The service also allows the payment of the expenses of the faculties of the Egyptian government universities, through the website of the bank, to facilitate procedures for parents and students to avoid the risk of carrying money and reduce the overcrowding on the payment windows in the headquarters of the colleges, with the immediate impact on their files in colleges affiliated to those universities,” he noted.
He explained that payments are made using prepaid cards only issued by the bank for students free of charge since 2014, in order to use them to pay their tuition fees through the POS machines that the bank has spread in the faculties of the public universities contracted with them, which also allows them to buy directly from shops, online and electronic billing payments, and mobile phone bills.
“The National Bank of Egypt is currently seeking to launch Debit Business Card companies, to provide more alternatives to customers to pay government dues, through the bank’s website,” Hegazy said.
He added that NBE was at the forefront of the banks that provide tax payment service to its customers and other bank customers through its website, which contributes to achieving the objectives of the Supreme Council of Payments, which works to achieve financial inclusion, reduce the circulation of cash in the markets, support the use of electronic payments, and activate the payment of government dues electronically in order to maintain the rapid collection of sovereign revenues of the state.
