Banque Misr endorses 2045 strategy to expand funding for SMEs

Egypt’s second biggest bank, state-run Banque Misr has endorsed a strategy, named 2045, aiming to expand its financing activities for micro, small, and medium-sized projects (MSMEs).

As part of the 2045 strategy, Banque Misr is targeting around 45 billion Egyptian pounds ($2.5 billion) worth of its MSMEs funding at the end of 2020, said the bank’s head of small, medium and micro finance sectors Sherif El Behery on Tuesday.

The Egyptian bank’s SME funding stood at 4.8 billion pounds at the end of June, distributed as 2.1 billion pounds for small businesses, 1.8 billion for medium ones, and around 900 million pounds for micro, El Behery added.

In January 2016, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced the SME initiative, saying that Egypt’s banks would inject 200 billion pounds into supporting businesses over the next four years. Accordingly, the country’s central bank issued guidelines on how it will incentivise banks to participate in a “comprehensive programme” to help finance SMEs in a bid to create jobs and support its battered economy.