The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) has won the largest share of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) awards, which includes more than 101 financial institutions, central banks, and supervisory authorities from 89 countries. The awards came in recognition of the CBE’s efforts to enhance financial inclusion and support economic empowerment for citizens and companies, as well as facilitate access to banking and financial services for all segments of society.
The AFI held its 12th annual conference in the Dead Sea, Jordan this September, where the CBE won two awards for innovation in digital financial services and commitment to achieving financial inclusion goals, among five awards presented by the alliance annually. The bank was also honoured for reaching the final round, among three other countries, for the awards of institutional excellence and financial inclusion for young people.
This achievement is the result of the great support by various state institutions concerned with financial inclusion, in addition to the fruitful cooperation with all authorities and institutions at the international and local levels which had a great impact in achieving these distinguished results. This reflects the size of the effort being made to enhance Egypt’s vision to achieve sustainable development, especially with regard to providing digital financial and banking services to all segments of society, and expanding the target financial inclusion rates.
The first award the CBE received was “Nestor Espenilla Jr Financial Inclusion Award” in the field of innovation in digital financial services. It is the highest award offered by the AFI.
The CBE is the first institution in the world to win this award, which was created in memory of the late Governor of the Central Bank of the Philippines, Nestor Spain Jr., one of the founders of the AFI.
It is worth mentioning that the award was granted to the CBE for its achievements in digital financial services during the previous period, as well as the roadmap set by the bank to develop these services during the coming period, which contributes to the transformation of a society less dependent on banknotes and achieving financial inclusion.
The CBE also won an award for fulfilling financial inclusion commitments called “Maya Commitments Award”, which is granted to members of the coalition in the field of sustainable financial inclusion and the fight against poverty, through moral pledges made annually by member states. These pledges include reducing the gap between females and males in obtaining official financial services, increasing the percentage of financial inclusion for youth, financial education, and others. The award was named after the city of Maya in Mexico, where this initiative was launched.
The CBE also reached the final qualifier stage among three other countries for two awards: Institutional Excellence and the Youth Financial Inclusion Award (Child & Youth Finance International). The ward was created by the alliance to reflect the importance of financial inclusion for youth worldwide.
In 2013, the CBE joined the AFI, which was established in 2008. The alliance aims to develop tools used to implement financial inclusion, exchange technical and practical experiences between countries, and help them formulate and implement reform policies and strategies.
