Minister of Expatriate Affairs Soha Al-Gendy met with Mohamed Al-Etreby — Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Banque Misr, President of the Federation of Egyptian Banks, and President of the Union of Arab Banks — in the presence of a number of officials from the ministry and Banque Misr.
In a statement by the ministry, Al-Gendy said that this meeting comes to discuss providing banking and investment services and products for Egyptian expats and increasing the percentage of their remittances, which represents an important source of hard currency for Egypt.
In this context, she reviewed the recommendations, results, and requests of Egyptians expats, which came out of the third edition of the Conference of Egyptian Entities Abroad, which was held last August. Among the needs discussed by the conference was the provision of banking products and services to invest in in their home country.
Al-Gendy stressed that Egypt’s national banks enjoy great credibility with the masses of expats abroad, and therefore they are very keen to deal with these banks, pointing out that the ministry will promote these products, savings instruments, and investment vessels during its meetings with Egyptians abroad directly or via video conference.
For his part, Al-Etreby expressed his happiness with the meeting, and expressed his eagerness to cater to the needs of Egyptian expats and provide them with the services they require to invest in their home country.
He also indicated that the bank is fully prepared to provide all services to Egyptians abroad and facilitate the procedures to obtain them, adding that the bank has five branches in the UAE.
Moreover, the bank has a branch in France, a subsidiary bank in Germany, and ten branches of a subsidiary bank in Lebanon, in addition to a representative office in Russia (Moscow), China (Guangzhou), South Korea (Seoul), Italy (Milan), and is strengthening its presence in Africa.
He explained that Banque Misr recently obtained the final approval from the Central Bank of Kenya to license its representative office in Nairobi and soon, a branch of the bank will be opened in Saudi Arabia, along with a wide network of correspondents covering all countries of the world.
Among the incentives discussed in the meeting were real estate financing products for Egyptians residing in the UAE to purchase housing units inside Egypt, with Banque Misr granting mortgage loans to finance the purchase of ready-to-delivery units with periods ranging from one to 15 years at a maximum financing value of EGP 5m at competitive interest rates in the banking market.
Al-Etreby added that the service will be provided through the bank’s branches abroad and that the offer will be made available in countries where the bank does not have branches, where the documents will be certified through the customer’s dealing bank and authenticated through the embassy.
At the end of the meeting, Al-Gendy demanded that these offers be circulated to all countries, especially Arab countries that include a large number of Egyptian expats.
