During the third session of the Euromoney Conference, which focused on analysing Egypt’s economic growth over the past year and assessing the impact on each sector, Hisham Ezz al-Arab, chairman of Commercial International Bank (CIB), took the stage as a representative of the banking sector and the head of Egypt’s largest private bank.
In his speech, he stressed the importance of supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in this critical economic phase. Many public and private sector banks, including CIB, had already begun offering credit packages to encourage investment in this segment, which constitutes a significant part of Egypt’s informal economy.
However, I recently learned that CIB had imposed a monthly fee on accounts with balances below EGP 5,000—an action that could be seen as an obstacle for small investors looking to transition from the informal to the formal economy. This, in essence, contradicted Ezz al-Arab’s advocacy for supporting SMEs, prompting me to question him on the matter during the session. I asked whether this policy was at odds with both CIB’s stated strategy and the government’s broader goal of supporting small-scale entrepreneurs.
Ezz al-Arab responded with visible frustration: ‘There is a basic cost associated with every account the bank maintains. It is simply unreasonable for us to keep customers who leave ten pounds in their accounts, as these accounts collectively represent an unacceptable loss.’ He also argued that it was necessary to redefine what constitutes a ‘small’ or ‘medium’ enterprise, as these classifications vary depending on location and context.
Concluding his response—which stood in stark contrast to his earlier speech—Ezz al-Arab added: ‘We cannot do everything. We need to understand our market.’
This article is originally published by AlBorsa in Arabic and later AI-translated by South Push.