Egypt Records World's Highest Growth Rate in Mobile Wallets Regulation

The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA) issued its State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2020, where the international ranking of the National Telecom Regulatory Authority of Egypt (NTRA) of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology advanced 43 places to become 36th among 90 countries that adopt this type of services globally compared to 79th in 2019.

Accordingly, Egypt achieved the highest growth rate in the index globally, and the NTRA ranked second in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), where the value of the index rose to 81 points in 2020 compared to 69 points, a year earlier.

This comes within the NTRA strategy to develop Egypt's Information and Communications Technology (ICT) market and the services provided in it to become one of the world’s leading markets.

The report's index aims to measure the effectiveness of the controls and rules applied to electronic wallets opened on the mobile phone in the global telecom markets, and their suitability and impact on the spread and use of the service.

It is worth noting that the evaluation is carried out through several main axes, incluidng the organizational structure of service provision, concerned with the ease of procedures for opening and using portfolios, the proliferation axis, which is concerned with the availability of outlets for the user to obtain services, and the the maximum limits for financial transactions executed on the portfolios.

On his part, NTRA Chairman Hossam El-Gamal explained that the development of Egypt’s international ranking in the index comes in line with the state’s strategy in supporting the process of digital transformation and financial inclusion.

"The authority helped facilitate the opening and registration procedures in mobile wallets and expanding the scope of their uses, increasing the maximum limits for daily operations from EGP 6,000 to EGP 30,000, as well as increasing the maximum limits for monthly operations from EGP 50,000 to EGP 100,000, and coordinating with mobile companies to abolish any commissions on transfers from any mobile phone wallet to another."

The agency had issued a report for the first half of 2021 on indicators of the use of electronic wallets for mobile phones, where the total number of electronic wallets reached 16.3 million wallets in Egypt, and the number of operations executed reached 81 million electronic transactions.

By comparing the results of the report between H1 of FY2021 and that of 2020, it was noted that there was an increase by 175% in the number of transactions carried out using wallets, and a 300% increase in the number of transfers from one wallet to another. The results also showed a 132% surge in the number of withdrawals, and a 109% in the number of deposits.