NBE Starts Offering Musharaka Finance For SMEs

The National Bank of Egypt (NBE) will begin offering Musharaka finance for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) starting from this month.

Sources said the bank allocated about EGP 200 million for the new finance scheme after signing Musharaka finance agreements with the Social Fund for Development (SFD).

The bank targets to sign three finance agreements worth EGP 192 million with SFD to finance SMEs in Q3 of FY 2012/2013, sources added.

The values of the three agreements are EGP 100 million, EGP 80 million and EGP 12 million, sources said. The total value of finance agreements signed by NBE and SFD exceeded EGP 5 billion and they were used to finance tourism, medical and industrial sectors.

NBE’s portfolio of SME finance rose to EGP 8.6 billion at the end of November 2012. The bank plans to expand in financing unregistered SMEs which account for 90% of total number of SMEs.