During the past months, the Central Bank of Egypt launched the “Apple Bay” service for payments in cooperation with a group of chosen banks, as part of a set of fixed steps taken by the Central Egypt to convert to financial technologies of all kinds, hoping to catch the technical development in neighboring countries and reduce the circulation of papers Finance between citizens.
Although Apple Bay’s support came late, the Egyptian banking sector was taking steady steps in the past years in order to completely shift to digital payments, by launching a set of various services appropriate to all groups of people, to encourage them to convert to financial technologies of all kinds, however Do these endeavors succeed in imposing the digital transformation on the Egyptian people?
Graduated but fixed steps
In the last 10 years, the banking sector witnessed a set of steps that seem primitive, although it is pushing the system that completed it forward, as these steps were pleased to penetrate many classes in Egyptian society and provide the concept of digital payments, which was absent from a large segment of citizens until 2016 And, according to Tariq Mahfouz’s statement, the director of “Visa Egypt” at the time in his meeting with the “Seventh Day” website.
Mahfouz explained that the “Visa Egypt” company is taking unremitting steps in cooperation with the Central Bank of Egypt, the Egyptian National Bank and Bank of Egypt, in order to transfer the government salary system into a digital system, after the Egyptian government employees in various sectors depended on the mechanisms of manual salaries, and it has been The number of government employees at the time reached more than 5.8 million employees, according to the report of the “Al -Masry Al -Youm” website.
These endeavors were successful after several years, as salary cards became the method approved in all government agencies, and with this success, the next step began to move to full digital payments by citizens in various government sectors, to enter the digital collection system in 2019 Coinciding with the launch of the Egyptian local payments network, “Manda”, whose cards are easy to issue from various banks.
By 2024, these steps resulted in the provision of more than 48 million Egyptian citizens to the digital banking system out of 67 million citizens of the age of adulthood, after having bank accounts was exclusive to a specific class of Egyptian citizens, in addition to that, the central bank was published More than 8 thousand digital sale points from July 2021 to June 2024, according to the statement of the Central Bank of Egypt issued last December.
Despite this wide spread, the wide geographical area of Egyptian cities makes it difficult to spread the culture of digital and banking payments in all their corners, to face the people of the regions difficulties in using this system in a way that is similar to use in the capital or major cities.
Cake
The main goal behind the financial inclusion initiative and the digital transformation of government payments was to consolidate the concept of digital payments instead of paper and spreading this culture among the various groups of society, and then, it is time to catch the financial development in neighboring countries and the world.
This trip started with the launch of “Telda”, which is the first Egyptian digital bank in 2021, to join a group of other companies such as “Fawry” and “Clever” and other digital banks, and although the launch of these banks came in cooperation with Usually Egyptian banks such as “Cairo” and “Egypt” and others, because their spread was limited among the sons of “Generation Z”, which is part of the targeting strategy for each company.
Digital banks aim to facilitate the idea of opening bank accounts and obtaining payment cards in a way that goes without the need to go to a bank branch or other matters, which was able to achieve with great success in the past years.
Last December, the Egyptian Central Central launched the services of “Apple Bay” with expectations to launch the services of “Samsung Bay” and “Google Bay” in January, to approach the Egyptian payment system from the global financial technology race.
In conjunction with this technical financial transformation, a group of various future payment applications appeared, starting with “Valio” and “immediately” that raised $ 157 million in the form of various funds last July, and at the present time the subsequent payments applications are the first option for researchers Considering financing, thanks to the ease of subscribing to it and benefiting from its various services.
It should be noted that the “Instabai” application launched by the Egyptian Central Bank of Egypt, in order to facilitate financial transactions between individuals and transfer and receive money, and the application was able in 2024 – according to the Egypt Central statement – to complete 1.5 billion transactions with a value of 2.9 trillion Egyptian pounds between More than 12 million customers.
Do digital payments succeed?
It has become clear that the Egyptian companies – in addition to the Egyptian government – are trying hard to impose digital transformation on the citizens of the state and the use of digital transactions instead of paper, but the real question remains here. Do these endeavors succeed? Or is the street another opinion.
According to the “Statista” website, 72% of the total financial operations in the various points of sale take place through paper transactions, with the remaining percentage divided between a large number of different payment mechanisms, which reflects a firm concept of a wide segment of the Egyptian street, please Using securities.
Despite these wide attempts by the Egyptian companies, banks and government, the various digital payments system faces a set of challenges at many times, in the number of transactions that are suspended or stopped for technical errors, which raises suspicion and concerns of the Egyptian street.
But it is expected that the rate of those wishing to use securities will decrease in the coming years, with the emergence of the children of “Generation Z” to the introduction to the purchasing power as well as the children of the generation “Alpha”, who are mostly now eligible to possess bank accounts.
