The Ministry of Finance confirmed that 75% of the state’s workers have finished activating their Meeza national government payment cards and that they are ready to disburse all their financial dues, calling on the remaining workers to activate their Meeza cards.
Meeza is the latest global technological card with a national brand that achieves the highest levels of insurance and is one of the most important tools for transitioning to a non-cash economy and enhancing financial inclusion in the new Egyptian Republic, which contributes to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government performance, improving the quality of services provided to citizens, and strengthening governance and transparency.
A statement by the ministry said that Meeza cards are secured with contactless smart chips, facilitate cash withdrawals, deposit and transfer services from ATM machines, electronic purchases via the internet or electronic PoSs, and the payment of government dues electronically through a unified payment and collection system.
The cards also provide advance payroll services to state workers free of charge for a period of six months — starting from the beginning of the operation of these cards — allowing them to access 30% of the value of their salaries ahead of time for specific purchases.
Emad Abdel Hamid — Head of the Finance Sector and Supervisor of the Electronic Payment and Collection Unit at the Ministry of Finance — said that no additional fees are incurred while collecting government dues with Meeza, noting that 4.2m cards have been issued to disburse the dues of state workers at a rate of 98% in cooperation with Banque Misr, the National Bank of Egypt, the Housing and Development Bank, the Arab African International Bank, Emirates NBD, Banque du Caire, the Arab Banking Corporation, the United Bank, the Commercial International Bank, and the National Post Authority.
He also pointed out that the ministry was keen to build the electronic payment and collection system with well-established rules through many ministerial decisions and periodical books with attention to the technological infrastructure of devices and means of communication, establishing databases, and systems for managing electronic payment and collection operations, as well as paying attention to training and qualifying human resources to deal with the latest automated systems.
For her part, Dalia Fawzy — Director-General of Electronic Payment in the Office of the Minister of Finance — confirmed the ministry’s success in overcoming all the challenges that surfaced during the experimental phase of the system. She added that, in the event of a Meeza card being lost, the issuing bank should be contacted to issue a replacement card.
