By Waleed Abdel Azeem
What is the market segment which Barclays Egypt credit cards services targets?
Barclays Bank Egypt offers its best in class credit card products to salaried, mass affluent, affluent and high net worth segments
Can you disclose the number of clients who have a Barclays credit card? Do you expect that number to grow? Is there a target in increasing the number of credit cards?
Barclays Bank Egypt has over 80,000 credit card clients. We do expect the number of clients holding credit cards to increase as the market develops and customers realise the benefits associated with this form of payment mechanism. Our objective is to make credit cards available to all qualifying Barclays customers, and we have been growing year-on-year by approximately 10% and we expect this trend to continue.
What is the value owed to the bank by the credit card clients? What is the value of that figure to retail loans?
The value owed to the bank by credit card clients as of end of April 2014 accounts is EGP 567m. The value is 50% in comparison to retail loans.
How much are the conditions to obtaining a credit card with Barclays Egypt compliant with Barclays’ international standards?
The main conditions for qualifying for a credit card are to establish a proof of income and employment and to have a clean credit history in Egypt. We also assess customer affordability in determining the final offer to the customer. The customer conditions are in line with all local regulations and with Barclays International standards.
Are there any new services the bank is offering with regards to the credit card services?
We now have Barclays Platinum Worldmiles credit card in Egypt whereby customers can redeem their reward miles for air tickets on any airlines, to any destination and at any time.
In addition we are the only bank in Egypt to offer the Barclays Premier League card that enables one customer per quarter to be selected for an all expenses paid trip to watch a Barclays Premier League match live in the UK.
Barclays has recently launched a value packed cash back credit card which offers customers 5% cash back when they do grocery shopping anywhere in the world.
In addition we have several other unique features and services related to our credit card product.
What do you think about that e-payment penetration in Egypt?
In my view, e-payment penetration is low and there is a lot of room to grow in this area, to cover utilities payments, tax payments, person-to-person and business-to-business payments, online shopping and other recurring payments.
Several studies showed that e-payment can help with the growth levels of the gross domestic project (GDP). Do you agree?
I agree that e-payments can help with the growth of GDP as the electronic payments open up new avenues/modes of industry/business growth contributing to the GDP. In addition the growth of e-payments helps to bring more people into the formal financial sector and this enables a greater variety of financial services to be provided based on individual and business requirements. This directly contributes to the growth of GDP.
