| Egypt's New Banking Law Alert#1: Payments, Fintech & Electronic Evidence |
| | Sharkawy & Sarhan Newsletter Issue 116, 6 October 2020 |
| The new banking law 194/2020 was issued and published on 15 September 2020 (“New Banking Law”). This new law is set to achieve several key goals, in particular, to ensure that Egypt’s banking system keeps pace with international standards of best practice and to ensure that the required legal framework is in place so as to allow for and facilitate the development and modernisation of the payments system. This is an essential pillar in achieving the Government’ s economic expansion plan driven by increased financial inclusion and digital transformation.
In this alert, we concentrate on the implications of the New Banking Law on the evolving and growing sector of payments processing in a country where cash is still king.
Stay tuned for our next alerts in this series on the New Banking Law:
Alert#2: Projects & Finance – The Collateral Regime, Digital Banking and Repatriation of Funds under the New Banking Law.
Alert#3: Banking M&As – The Implications of the New Banking Law on M&A Transactions. |
| 1. The payments industry in Egypt
Egypt’s payments industry is on a trajectory for growth. There are immense opportunities for players in the payments sphere, with many untapped tools, technologies, and market segments.
As of 2017, (i) only 32.8% of Egyptian adults had a bank account (up from 9.7% in 2011) and (ii) only 5.9% of adults used mobile money, a debit or credit card, or a mobile phone to make a payment, used the internet to pay bills or to buy something online (World Bank Database).
These low penetration rates, in addition to a fast-growing population, leave much room for growth in an underserved sector, promising a high success rate and return to entrants into this sector. Fawry, Egypt’s leading homegrown digital payments provider IPOed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange almost a year ago, and quadrupled in value, despite launching in the midst of Covid-19 (Bloomberg).
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| | | | Lamiaa Youssef - Partner
Lamiaa has over fifteen years of experience in various roles in the legal industry. Her practice spans corporate law, employment law, M&As, oil & gas, dispute settlement, NGOs, and general contract law, and knowledge management. Being a techie at heart, Lamiaa also focuses on digital regulation; advising clients on all matters relating to e-payment, e-signature and e-evidence, doing business online, as well as analysis of new legal issues posed by unregulated new ways to do business.
Internally, Lamiaa spearheads the firm’s digital transformation and innovation efforts. She leads the firm initiatives relating to automation of legal and non-legal processes, and relating to information security.
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