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Fawry gets CBE nod to partner with state-owned bank for transfer service: E-payments platform Fawry has received preliminary approval from the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) to set up a bank transfer service for Egyptian expats; the service will be offered in partnership with an unnamed state-owned bank, CEO Ashraf Sabry tells Al Mal. Fawry has been in talks with several local and regional banks — including the National Bank of Egypt (NBE), Bank of Alexandria, Banque du Caire, and ADIB — to set up the remittances service for Egyptians living in the Gulf since last year, former managing director Mohamed Okasha said in December, saying at the time that the service would initially be rolled out in the UAE, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Remittances, particularly from expats in the GCC, are a key source of foreign currency for Egypt and helped to narrow its current account deficit through the worst of the pandemic in 3Q2019-2020.

CAIRO (Reuters) - The initial public offering for Egyptian digital payments company Fawry was oversubscribed by 30.3 times at a price of 6.46 Egyptian pounds (39 U.S. cents), data from the Egyptian stock exchange showed on Monday.

Fawry plans to list 36% of its share capital, worth up to 1.6 billion Egyptian pounds ($97 million), in the flotation.It said Actis, Banque Misr and National Bank of Egypt would each be offered about 7% of the stock, and 5% would be offered to retail investors.A private placing representing the remaining 10% of the share capital was 15.9 times oversubscribed, raising about 360 million Egyptian pounds, investment bank EFG Hermes said last Thursday.

“The subscriptions for both the public and private offerings for Fawry were large and strong because the industry itself is new to the market and has greater than average growth,” said Radwa El-Swaify, head of research at Pharos Securities Brokerage.

echnology and its trends has made our lives easier especially in the fields of financial technology and payments. Now there are more advanced ways of payments and one of the most important players in Egypt in this field is Fawry. Fawry offers financial services to consumers and businesses through different channels and locations. Through Fawry you can pay your mobile, landline and utilities bills, donate money, renew your car license and more. Fawry was founded in 2008 and officially started in the market in 2010. They now have offered their service to reach 80,000 points of service in 300 cities all over Egypt. Their portfolio of businesses include: Orange, Vodafone, Etisalat, Go Bus, Lynks, Anghami, Ahl Misr Foundation, Resala and more

We started by hiring the best people we could find, for any startup to succeed it needs a really strong team especially at the beginning. We also got a good fund at the beginning from different entities such as Raya Holding, Technology Development Fund (Ideavelopers), Arab African International Bank, HSBC, Alexbank and other banks, this is what helped us build our brand.

Strong team management and good negotiation skills. The second thing is that it was a mutual investment fund, those investors already liked Fawry’s model and didn’t want to change anything but just help accelerate our growth with some cash. We are now a large corporate but with the spirit of a startup. Even until now, we appreciate everyone’s input at the company whether they have been working here for a month or 5 years. it doesn’t matter.

Fawry’s fortune is partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic that caused more people to place a high demand for its e-payment offerings. Being the leading fintech company in Egypt, Fawry’s revenue for the first half of 2020 increased by 47% to EGP 549.26M, from EGP 373.33 generated in 2019.Fawry has joined the rank of African companies that have become unicorns. Jumia was the first to attain unicorn status after listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Interswitch also became a unicorn after Visa acquired minority stakes last year. All three have attained global recognition, credibility, and reputation. The unicorn status creates a good public perception for investors and potential customers.

Fawry’s fortune is partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic that caused more people to place a high demand for its e-payment offerings. Being the leading fintech company in Egypt, Fawry’s revenue for the first half of 2020 increased by 47% to EGP 549.26M, from EGP 373.33 generated in 2019.

Ashraf Sabry and Mohamed Okasha founded Fawry in 2008. It has an online payment gateway for business owners to transact with customers via cash, credit cards, and e-wallets. In 2019, Fawry listed about 36% (254.6M) of its ordinary shares on the Egyptian Stock Exchange. It initially sold at EGP 6.46 per share, and then it tripled to EGP 18.78 at a market cap of EGP 13.3B in July 2020. After going public, other investors took an interest that led to a significant increase by over 300% in its stock price since its debut at the Egyptian Stock Exchange.

Being the leading the electornic payments player in Egypt, Fawry is arguably the biggest benificiary of acceleration of digital payments there. It offers hundreds of electronic payment services through its network of over over close to 200,000 service points across Egypt – whcih include ATMs, mobile wallets, retail shops, post offices, and vendor kiosks. Fawry has introduced many new payments and lending products for both consumers and businesses over the last tweleve months and is apparently on additional new services too that are expected to be rolled out within the next few months.

The Egyptian payments firm had gone public in August 2020 by listing its shares on EGX at the price of EGP 6.46 per share. The share price has surged over 7x after company’s public market debut about eigtheen months ago.

Fawry for Banking & Payment Technology Services SAE, an Egyptian digital payments provider, was listed on Cairo’s exchange about a year back. The company recently experienced a 300% increase in its market value to 20 billion Egyptian pounds (appr. $1.3 billion). The payments firm confirmed that its valuation has grown 4x since the COVID-19 outbreak in late February 2020. As first reported by Bloomberg, Fawry is now ranked among Egypt’s 10 most valuable firms, which include Telecom Egypt Co. and Elswedy Electric Co. However, these businesses are generating a lot more revenue compared to Fawry for now. Many locals in Egypt are still settling transactions with cash payments, despite the Coronavirus crisis which has made it unsafe to handle paper currency notes. However, the nation’s reserve bank has asked lending platforms and other financial service providers to encourage residents to make digital payments via mobile wallets. The central bank also wants Egyptians to use online payment platforms like Fawry in order to limit physical contact, so that the virus doesn’t spread further.

Fawry is educating unbanked population to trust electronic payments. Fawry would not have existed in a mature economy, where electronic payments are dominant. In that sense, Fawry is filling a gap left by banking players in Egypt.

One of the most striking differences between banking in Europe and in Egypt is cash management. Withdrawals and deposits of cash are the dominant operations in the Egyptian banking branches. It is frequent to meet customers with big bags of money in or out of banking branches. In Europe, anti-money laundering laws and electronic payments popularity made large cash operations extremely rare.

The success of Fawry comes from leveraging the best of the 2 means of payment: cash for its reliability and availability, and electronic systems for their seamless and fast processing.

awry collaborated with banks in many other products where direct integration, SaaS or hybrid models were being used to offer products  to both bank customers and Fawry customers.

Fawry is Egypt’s first and largest electronic payment network established in 2008, offering financial services to consumers and businesses through a variety of channels nationwide, Fawry services include but are not limited to electronic bill presentment and payment, alternative digital payments, omnichannel acceptance, supply chain payments, agent banking services, digital SME lending and other varieties of digital solutions for banks, billers and merchants.

GLC Paints is providing EGP 500 grants to construction painters through Fawry outlets across Egypt in an initiative to help those affected by the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.The move by GLC Paints comes as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme. The company has also responded to government and social calls for private sector companies to support workers in the current conditions.

Fawry service can immediately be used by Egyptians to receive and pay their bills electronically among an ever growing list of billers and supporting banks. Consumers can already use Fawry for bill presentment and payment for telecommunications services including Etisalat, Mobinil, and Vodanfone.

This innovation not only simplifies consumers’ lives, but allows more merchants to become a part of the electronic payments cycle, giving them the opportunity to safely conduct transactions and appeal to consumers who prefer not using cash. We have seen significant growth rates, and have managed to reach up to 1 million transactions per da

When we founded Fawry, an electronic bill payment and presentment company, we were very aware of the gap between card usage and the limited acceptance points in Egypt. Our aim was to extend acceptance channels beyond the traditional card acceptance points to make life easier for consumers in Egypt.

Fawry’s service is playing a key role in revolutionizing the payment industry in Egypt, a country where only 10% of the population of 85 million people has access to formal banking services.

Heya- fawry is an initiative in collaboration with arab women enterprise fund, Baheya, AXA and unilever to empower women, increase their opportunities in the financial market and help them to climb up the financial inclusion pyramid in Egypt Fawry as the leading e-payment network in Egypt is supporting poor and disadvantaged women by training them to become Heya fawry-agents, providing POS machines offering them complementary micro-insurance coverage. Ultimately, this initiative will allow poor unbanked women to have access to life-enhancing financial services (mobile top-ups, bill payments, money transfers, microloan payments, as well as essential nutrition and healthcare goods) directly via their nearest Fawry’s agents to raise income for them and their families and to enhance the well-being of the society. Fawry’s main aim is “to ensure that women access our services in the same extent as men do”

Fawry Microfinance, a subsidiary of the listed Fawry for Banking and Payment Technology Services, intends to borrow at least EGP 300 million from its existing shareholders, Enterprise cited Fawry CEO Ashraf Sabry on December 14th

Fawry’s subsidiary plans to expand its microfinance portfolio to EGP 500 million by the end of 2021, up from EGP 204 million until September 2020, the news portal added.“We have seen solid growth in 2020 and we see the potential of lending to small businesses to finance their working capital and purchases from suppliers,” Enterprise quoted Sabry as saying.

Fawry Shareholders Approve To Sell 1000 Shares In Fawry Dahab Electronic Services To Banque Misr

"The success of Fawry is driven by the adoption of a large number of billers and banks to ensure that the largest part of the Egyptian population can benefit from Fawry," said Magda Habib, chief commercial officer at Fawry. "We are in the process of on-boarding a significant number of new members across a diversity of services ranging from social clubs to schools to utilities and insurance, ensuring that Egyptians are able to access and pay their bills across a wide range of services with ease and complete security through Fawry."

This is a super exciting time for Egyptian fintechs. For Fawry to reach a market cap of $1 billion within one year of its IPO is quite impressive and is a moment to celebrate. This will help the whole industry and will open more doors for fintechs to receive funds and make partial exits.

Commenting on the news, Okasha told WAYA: “This is a super exciting time for Egyptian fintechs. For Fawry to reach a market cap of $1 billion within one year of its IPO is quite impressive and is a moment to celebrate. This will help the whole industry and will open more doors for fintechs to receive funds and make partial exits.”Fintechs and electronic banking companies have seen a huge increase in demand as a result of the pandemic. Fawry saw an increase of more than 50% of the company’s value before the Covid-19 crisis. This number grew exponentially during the crisis.The company went public on the Egyptian Exchange in August 2019, since then its stock price has increased by over 300%. The initial cost of one share at the company was EGP 6.46.According to Fawry’s website, it handles around 2.1 million transactions daily and collected $2.43 billion last year. It has approximately 20 million customers.

Visa and Fawry sign strategic partnership to accelerate digital payments acceptance

One of the key solutions that the partnership aims to address is the need to enable a digital ecosystem that easily supports the needs of consumers and merchants. Through Visa Direct’s peer to peer transfer and low cost QR solutions, millions of customers – regardless of who they bank with – would be able to make peer to peer and business to business transactions easily and securely so they can move money in real time.

Although Fawry, Egypt’s top e-payment platform and leading fintech, became Africa’s latest ‘unicorn’ this year via a listing on an African bourse, it will not be the last to emerge from the country’s burgeoning tech scene, according to the International Finance Corporation (IFC). “Egypt will produce further unicorns one day, absolutely,” says Walid Labadi, the IFC’s country manager for Egypt, Libya and Yemen. “We fundamentally believe in the power of the entrepreneurial spirit and its ability to address fundamental market needs, which will eventually create significant economic value and can become a driver for creating future entrepreneurs. Advertisement

Founded in 2008 by Ashraf Sabry and Mohamed Okasha, the company listed on the country’s main bourse, the Egyptian Exchange, in August 2019 and was valued at $275m. However, at the start of October this year, its valuation surpassed more than $1bn.It is the third African start-up to reach unicorn status and the first one to do so after going public on an African stock exchange.

Fawry offers an online payment gateway for business owners to transact with customers via cash, credit cards and e-wallets. It has helped to transform the Egyptian economy by reducing the reliance on cash, lowering costs and offering a more convenient way to pay. Its good fortune is partly due to the Covid-19 pandemic that prompted many people to place a high demand on its e-payment solutions. Its revenue for the first nine months of 2020 surged to E£892m ($57m), a 45% jump on the same period last year.