The importance of financial inclusion for Egypt

27 / 06 / 2019

• op-ed

Recently financial inclusion has become a hot topic in Egypt, especially after the World Bank Group (WBG) chose Egypt, China and Mexico to be their operational countries in its Financial Inclusion Global Initiative.

Also, the WBG said that Egypt has the needed laws, regulations, financial systems and infrastructure to bring 44 million citizens to the formal financial sector.

Also, the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), and the Alliance For Financial Inclusion (AFI) signed this year the Financial Inclusion for the Arab Region Initiative (FIARI). This initiative aims to boost policies and actions to enhance Arab countries’ access to financial services through a coordinated mechanism which ensures the implementation of financial inclusion policies.

DIFFERENT INITIATIVES IN THE COUNTRY FOR FINANCIAL INCLUSION

Crédit Agricole Egypt has supported Egypt’s financial inclusion from the beginning as last year in the first on the ground financial inclusion initiative in Egypt Credit Agricole participated by introducing MYFIRST the package for youth and avail it for free with no opening or period fees with a bank booth in 7 universities most of them in Upper Egypt to spread financial awareness and tips.

This year also Crédit Agricole Egypt participated in the financial inclusion week with even more activities by availing new account type free of charge to open with cash back offer upon card usage to encourage unbanked population in Egypt to open and use Debit card along with digital banking services. Also, the bank was available through portable booths in 10 different locations all over Egypt between universities, clubs and shopping malls during the financial inclusions week.

Also, this year Credit Agricole hosted 16 Cairo University students to spend the day in the Head office and provided an educational session about banking and products then they had a tour through some of the bank departments.

YOUTH BANK PACKAGES

In the past two years, a lot of banks have launched youth-related bank products in view of the effective roles that youth and students could play in the country’s economy in the coming few years.

In fact, many of university student nowadays could be considered young entrepreneurs and are involved in a very promising startups.

Crédit Agricole Egypt launched MYFIRST – the essential bank package for youth from 18 up to 26 years old. Youth can subscribe in the package and enjoy the basic banking products along with latest digital banking channels and educational events, internship opportunities and appealing offers.

CSR SUSTAINABILITY

Credit Agricole S.A Group believes that CSR is an integral part of all its businesses and functions, the principle is as follows: in the fields of compliance, human resources and the environment, every Group entity participating in the initiative, must choose areas for improvement within the subsidiary in which they would like to boost their performance.

This is why Crédit Agricole Egypt has chosen over the past year to invest in developing the community through many regular activities such as Annual Ramadan Bags and winter blankets for the most needy villages across Egypt. It also financed the development in some community schools in Upper Egypt and more… Furthermore, this year we launched Credit Agricole Egypt foundation for development which will expand our strategy towards community by investing in much more sustainable projects and invest in people and their talents and projects more instead of just giving away assistive materials.

GREEN FINANCING

Having environment as one of the CSR main pillars for CAE, the bank’s new head office has been designed to save energy, use less water, generate less waste and provide a higher levels of indoor quality and comfort. According to the implementation of these highest standards for a GREEN SUSTAINABLE project, CAE Head Office was the 1st building in Egypt awarded the Platinum LEED Certificate.

With Egypt supporting now the Green strategy by encouraging green sources of energy and the latest new about pushing electric cars in the Egyptian market , Crédit Agricole Egypt is aiming to start tailoring products to finance and support Green projects and initiatives in Egypt, such as electric cars and solar-powered constructions.

THE SUSTAINABILITY INDEX IMPORTANCE:

The Sustainability Index has designed in the purpose of tracking the size of disclosure; transparency information made available by companies about their corporate governance, environmental and social responsibility practices, as well as the size of market cap and liquidity of the company.

Crédit Agricole Egypt is about to launch its new bank strategy, emphasis its existence in the Egyptian market. The new awaited strategy is putting the sustainability initiatives in the heart of our global strategy, as we believe that Sustainability leads to innovation and innovation drives performance. Our strategy complies with the social responsibility of the bank towards our investors and our society by giving a clear attention to the corporate governance and our shareholders with a high level of business ethics and corporate responsibility toward our surrounded environment giving a high level of respect for our staff who we considers the most valuable asset to Crédit Agricole Egypt as well as our community and customers.