Egypt’s State-Owned E-Finance Platform to Go Public with IPO Programme

Egypt’s first fintech platform, e-finance for Digital and Financial Investments, has announced it will offer up to 14.5% of its capital in an initial public offering (IPO) and will list its shares on the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) in the final quarter of 2021.

Founded in 2005, e-finance has claimed to be the sole entity with the authorisation to operate the government’s financial network - including processing and settling payment and collection transactions - and is the state’s digital partner of choice.

“E-finance is ready to begin its journey as a publicly listed business, with our potential IPO marking a major milestone after 16 years of hard work and transformation. Since the company’s establishment to develop and operate digital channels for the Government’s financial network through e-finance for Digital Operations, we have successfully grown our business far beyond the government sphere and our reach now extends to a variety of sectors across the Egyptian economy,” said e-finance chairman and CEO, Ibrahim Sarhan.

E-finance said it would float 177.8 million new shares on the stock exchange and 80 million shares owned by current shareholders, to both institutional and retail investors. Among its current shareholders are three state-owned banks: National Investment Bank (63.64%), National Bank of Egypt and Banque Misr (each 9.09%).

e-finance's revenue rose to 1.23 billion Egyptian pounds (USD $78 million) in 2020 and 904 million pounds in the first half of 2021, a 2018-20 compound annual growth rate of 30%. Speaking of their success, e-finance explained: “The group’s performance underscores its centrality to Egypt’s payments ecosystem and its continuous development of innovative products and services that generate value for state-owned and private enterprises across the breadth of Egypt’s growing economy. Besides processing EGP 2.1 trillion in government transactions, e-finance owns the largest producer of payment cards in Egypt, offering integrated smart solutions tailored to banking, transportation, cultural, education, club and smart city services”.

The sale is subject to market conditions and regulatory approvals.