Fintech Egypt — an initiative powered by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) — released a first-of-its-kind report this week that provides a comprehensive and holistic overview of the unprecedented growth that Egypt has witnessed in the fintech industry over the last few years.
The report sheds light on local fintech and fintech-enabled start-ups and entrepreneurs, in addition to fintech ecosystem stakeholders such as incubators, accelerators, investors, and supporting organisations.
The purpose of the report is to deliver a holistic overview of their capabilities and needs as well as identify potential areas for support, collaboration, and partnership among fintech ecosystem stakeholders.
The report revealed that fintech in Egypt has grown at a rapid pace over the last few years. As per the report, there has been a tremendous growth in venture capital investments over the last five years from around $1M raised in three fintech deals in 2017, to more than $159m in 2021 from 32 fintech deals.
Investments have also soared by more than 300% during the last 12 months only, indicating the development and the expansion of mature and scaled fintech & fintech-enabled start-ups.
In the same context, fintech and fintech-enabled start-ups operating in this field have been steadily growing, as they increased from only two start-ups in 2014 to 112 by the end of 2021 in more than 14 innovative sub-sectors, such as payments and remittances, B2B marketplaces, lending and alternative finance, etc.
The report also diligently shed light on Egyptian young calibres and talented youths across all fields, especially in fintech. Furthermore, it indicated that the majority of Egyptian fintech start-ups were established by youths whose ages ranged between 25 and 35 years.
Moreover, the report highlighted the role played by the young talents who founded these start-ups, as they represent promising investments for the future towards achieving multiple benefits for the Egyptian market, as 24 start-ups have expanded in this field at the regional and international levels while enjoying significant presence in the MENA region, GCC Countries, and Europe.
“The 2021 Fintech Landscape Report comes in line with the efforts exerted by the CBE to promote the fintech industry since the launch of its Fintech and Innovation Strategy in 2019, in accordance with the directives of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to achieve the digital transformation goals of the Egyptian state as part of Egypt’s 2030 Vision,” said Rami Aboul-Naga, the Deputy Governor of the CBE.
“In light of this, the fintech regulatory sandbox was launched, a series of market here2hear roundtable discussions were conducted to pinpoint market demand areas, and promotion of fintech talents through dedicated educational programmes.”
Ayman Hussein, the First Sub-Governor of the CBE for the Information Technology Sector, also declared that “efforts to endorse the fintech industry have created an optimistic future for a promising pool of Egyptian fintech and fintech-enabled start-ups and investments, which are expected to prosper in 2022 with the launch of the Fintech & Innovation Hub (Grid), in addition to the Fintech Fund that is worth more than EGP 1.3bn that was established by the National Bank of Egypt, Banque Misr, and Banque du Caire, which aspires to become the largest fintech focused fund in the region.”
Rasha Negm, the Assistant Sub-Governor of the CBE for Financial Technology and Innovation, added that “this report acts as an initial step to provide a comprehensive view for all the fintech ecosystem stakeholders in Egypt as well as highlight the unprecedented growth that Egypt has witnessed in the field of financial technology over the last few years.”
“This report stems from surveys that included primary data received from 112 fintech and fintech-enabled start-ups and 18 of the ecosystem’s facilitators, including incubators, accelerators, investors, and supporting organisations. This report is expected to be a catalyst for future innovation and support for cooperation between all stakeholders of the fintech ecosystem.”
