Fintech 2026

EGYPT Law and Practice Contributed by: Dina Kamel, Helal El Hossary, Omar Fouda and Kareem Hashem, Zaki Hashem

Zaki Hashem 23 Kasr El Nil Street Cairo 11211 Egypt Tel: +20 2 2399 9999; +20 2 2393 3766 Fax: +20 2 2393 3585 Email: clientdevelopment@hashemlaw.com Web: www.hashemlaw.com

1. Fintech Market 1.1 Evolution of the Fintech Market

In parallel, the CBE issued the June 2025 licensing and registration rules for payment system operators (PSOs) and payment service providers (PSPs), signal - ling higher expectations around governance, opera - tional resilience and compliance for payment market participants. The aim is to strengthen parameters and regulations in preparation for continued digital finan - cial adoption in Egypt. On the non-banking side, the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) has been actively “productising” fintech licensing, starting in 2022 when the legisla - tor issued Law No 5 of 2022 (the “Law Regulating and Developing the Use of Financial Technology in Non‑Banking Financial Activities”), regulating the use of financial technology in non-banking financial activities. The aim was to enhance financial inclusion, expand the beneficiary base and reduce costs. Fol - lowing the law’s issuance, the FRA issued regulatory decrees regarding non-banking fintech companies’ incorporation, licensing, operation and technical requirements. On December 2024, the FRA granted Egypt’s first ful - ly digital non-banking fintech licence to Oliv Finance S.A.E., a joint stock company incorporated in accord - ance with the Law Regulating and Developing the Use of Financial Technology in Non‑Banking Finan - cial Activities and engaging in factoring activity using financial technology. The incorporation and licensing of Oliv Finance S.A.E. was a practical milestone for SME working capital products delivered end-to-end digitally. The FRA also introduced a first-of-its-kind pathway for digital insurance and reinsurance brokerage activity,

Over the past 12 months, Egypt’s fintech market has moved from linear growth to a more “regulated scale” phase, with rails, licensing and supervision catching up to adoption. On the payments side, Instapay, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE)-controlled instant payment network (IPN), continued to expand at mass scale. The mar - ket has shifted from free usage towards monetisation, with transfer fees applied from 1 April 2025 (0.1% of value; minimum EGP0.50, maximum EGP20). Insta - pay reported approximately 16 million users in June 2025, expected to reach upwards of 20 million users by year end. Transaction activity accelerated sharply, from 20.3 million transactions valued at EGP112.7 bil - lion in year one to nearly 1.5 billion transactions worth approximately EGP2.9 trillion by the end of 2024. In the first half of 2025 alone, Instapay reported process - ing 1.1 billion transactions valued at EGP2.4 trillion. The year 2025 also saw the first ever digital bank licence granted by the CBE. In August 2025, Banque Misr’s Misr Digital Innovation received approval to transition into onebank, Egypt’s first fully digital-native bank, with products and services expected to go live in 2026 through exclusively digital channels. This approval is widely viewed as a market inflection point under the CBE’s digital banking direction, unlocking a broader pipeline of “digital-first” banking entries. Multiple banks and fintechs have publicly signalled interest in digital bank licensing, reflecting a clear shift towards platform-led banking as the next phase in the modernisation of Egypt’s financial sector.

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