CBE Likely To Assign One of NBE’s Employees As Chairman For Six Months

Banking sources denounced what was said about the Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) plan to assign one of the National Bank of Egypt’s (NBE) employees to head the bank’s board of directors for six months until selecting a new chairman, following Tarek Amer, who resigned at the end of last month.

Sources told Amwal Al Ghad that the Presidency and Cabinet will not approve such suggestion for many reason such as the urgent need of a stable management for the largest Egyptian bank which acquires 25% of the Egyptian banking sector’s market share and the main financier of the government. In addition, this move will give a negative impression about the capability of the bank’s employees.

The bank has many banking cadres who have experiences to chair the bank’s board of directors in the upcoming period such as El-Sayed El-Kosayer who is currently the chairman of the Industrial Development and Workers Bank of Egypt. El-Kosayer has worked at NBE for 32 years. Mahmoud Montasser, head of credit sector, and Hisham Okasha, deputy chairman, are also eligible to be the next chairman of the bank.

Sources expected El-Kosayer to be the next chairman of NBE as he was one of the most prominent leaders of NBE as he worked for the bank from 1981 to 2011. He was a member of the board of directors and head of risk management department. He also enabled the bank to implement Basel I and Basel II standards.

When NBE’s employees held protests after 2011’s revolution demanding the resignation of Amer, Elwy and Okasha, CBE asked El-Kosayer to manage this crisis and negotiate with the employees. He succeeded to contain this crisis at that time, sources continued.