CBE: Egyptian fintech companies attracted $800 million in investments

The Financial Technology Perspective report issued by the Central Bank of Egypt showed that Egyptian fintech startups succeeded in investing an estimated $800 million during the past year 2022, of which $437.7 million was worth of investments injected in private equity of Egyptian startups operating in the field of financial technology, and $358.8 million in venture capital investments.

The report, published by the Middle East News Agency said that $241.1 million was injected as indirect investments made by banks, infrastructure providers, payment system operators in funds, fund trusts or business accelerators programs, and $49.2 million was injected as direct investments made by banks, infrastructure providers and payment system operators in fintech startups.

He explained that the number of fintech startups in the Egyptian market has more than doubled over 5 times over the last five years from 32 companies in 2017 to 177 companies in 2022, and 30% of those companies have expanded into foreign markets.

Within the framework of the Central Bank of Egypt's interest in spreading awareness in the fields and applications of financial technology and innovation across the younger generations in Egypt, the Central Bank launched the Finyology initiative, which provided training courses for 6,840 Egyptian university students with the participation of 25 universities and 18 banks, where university youth were able to submit 540 prototypes of specialised projects in financial technology.

The central bank has also launched the “Finters” initiative, which aims to reach out to fintech entrepreneurs based in the regions and provide them with the necessary training support.