Billionaire Naguib Sawiris plans to set up Egypt-based SME bank

Egyptian tycoon Naguib Sawiris said on Monday he seeks to set up a bank in his country specialising in services for small and medium-sized businesses.

Sawiris told reporters on the sidelines of an economic conference in Cairo that he had submitted his offer to establish the proposed bank to the Egyptian central bank’s governor Tarek Amer. He provided no further details about his proposed initial investment, other than that it would provide funding for the SME owners at very competitive interest rates.

The Egyptian tycoon owns a Luxembourg based Pan-European lender named Riverbank, specialising in funding small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) focusing on the Benelux Union countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg) and Germany.