Egypt’s Banque Misr small-sized loans rose to $489.6 mln since 2016

Egypt’s Banque Misr has offered a total of 8 billion Egyptian pounds ($489.6 million) in loans for small-sized projects since the central bank launched its SMEs initiative in 2016.

The bank, the second-largest state lender, has provided the funds for 13,000 beneficiaries at an interest rate of 5 percent, sources with knowledge of the matter told Amwal Al Ghad on Monday.

Banque Misr’s finances for small and medium-sized businesses had increased to 23 billion pounds in favour of 121,000 beneficiaries, the sources said.

“SMEs make up 18-19 percent of Banque Misr total credit portfolio, and the bank plans to increase it to 20 percent by the end of the current financial year.” they added.

In 2016, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) launched an initiative to encourage SME financing, saying that banks were required to allocate 20 percent of their total credit portfolios to financing projects until 2020.

The banks were to offer around 200 billion pounds to finance 350,000 companies and thus create job opportunities for more than four million people.