- Visa has partnered with the Egyptian Banks Company (EBC) to ease and improve the process of international remittances for Egyptians living abroad.
- This news follows EBC's announcement of a collaboration with Mastercard on February 7, 2024, aimed at improving Egypt’s digital payments ecosystem and fostering inclusive economic growth.
- This move will allow EBC's technological infrastructure and Visa's digital financial services to be combined to offer cutting-edge digital wallet and electronic payment solutions.
This partnership is consistent with the Egyptian government's and the CBE's strategies for encouraging and facilitating remittances from Egyptians working abroad.
The EBC is the technological arm of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), which manages and develops various domestic payment ecosystems in Egypt, including the Instant Payments Network (IPN) and the InstaPay application.
The CBE has also introduced a series of measures regulating credit card use by Egyptians abroad.
Consequently, customers who fail to provide documented evidence of credit card use during their stay abroad within 90 days will face several consequences, including credit card suspension and listing on a platform managed by the Egyptian Credit Bureau.
Per the memorandum of understanding (MoU) inked with the Egyptian Banks Company and the CBE, the initial project deals with integrating a service into the InstaPay application. It enables customers to handle funds transfers from Visa-linked accounts beyond Egypt into registered customers' accounts or other customers through the Instant Payments Network (IPN).
The IPN is an instant payment network that allows direct access to all accounts and real-time instant fund transfers. Customers can use this service to send money to bank accounts using their account number, mobile number, and digital wallets, among other things.
The second project involves partnerships with banks and financial institutions to facilitate transfers to recipients in Egypt using IPN's phone number or username directory.
Leila Serhan, Visa’s Senior Vice President for North Africa, the Levant, and Pakistan, emphasised the role of remittances from Egyptian expats as it contributes significantly to the national income and foreign currency inflow.
According to the World Bank, Egypt ranks fifth among the largest recipients of remittances globally, although it declined to $12 billion from $15.6 billion during the first half of the fiscal year 2022/2023.
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