Ayman El Desouky, the chairperson of Bee E-services, and the executive director of Ebtikar Investment Funding, said that Bee aims to add about 12,000 new selling points in 2019, to take the total number of sale points to 72,000, explaining that his company does not have plans to merge with Masari e-payment in 2019, adding that the payment market has not reached a state of saturation yet.
Ebtikar has acquired a 60% share of Bee and 35.7% of Masari, worth EGP 130m in June.
On Bee’s share in the payments market in Egypt, he said that his company ranks third in the market. Ebtikar has a plant to acquire 50% of the payment market locally.
The volume of consumer payments in Egypt was estimated to be EGP 350bn. They include loans and instalments, including EGP 40bn in e-payments.
In a related context, he added that Bee has launched a service to recharge electricity cards, in partnership with e-finance and the ministry of electricity, in order to enable citizens to recharge them at the nearest outlet for them to facilitate the payment process, noting that his company aims to offer its services to all customers who have electricity metres cards, and they are estimated to be six million at the time.
He revealed that payment services will be offered through a mobile application of the company’s.
Furthermore, he also explained that the total services offered by the company through its outlet are 100 within the framework of the company’s strategic plan to enhance e-payment services and financial inclusion through providing wider options, in addition to increasing the efficiency of bill collection through a developed network. All payments at the company can be done through more than 60,000 authorised outlets across the country.
Desouky added that Bee plays a major role in spreading e-payments to achieve financial inclusion and support the government’s in the digital transformation, noting that Ebtikar’s acquisition of 60% of the company is a strategic step to allow the company to prevail across the country among the largest number possible of traders and consumers in light of the considerable Egyptian market.
“Our company is committed to the initiatives issued by the Supreme Council for Payments and all the initiatives launched by the Central Bank of Egypt,” he added.
Mohamed Abo Khadra, the head of marketing at Bee, said that over 60,000 outlets of the company spread across the country, in addition to more than 99 services made available in all fields of recharging and bill payments of all kinds, such as water, electricity, mobile, internet, and landline bills. E-services are also provided by the company for many sectors, including education, tourism, transportations, and e-marketing. The service of electricity cards recharging is the service number 100 offered by Bee.
Abo Khadra said that all the services of the company are available through the Bee Mobile Application. It is the first application of its kind in Egypt in terms of users and daily transactions.