Egypt’s 2021 Fintech Landscape Report revealed that a significant surge in venture capital investments was directed to fintech and fintech-enabled startups.
The recently issued report by Fintech Egypt — an initiative powered by the Entral Bank of Egypt (CBE) — revealed an unprecedented growth rate of 300% in investment funding amounts attracted by this sector during 2021 alone.
Additionally, the report exhibited extensive progress in the fintech industry, starting with only two start-ups in 2014 to a total of 112 by 2021, with a strong uptrend of 55 times, positioning Egypt among the top four active African countries in the fintech industry.
The report also accentuated the factors supporting the fintech industry’s growth in Egypt, most notably, the leap in financial inclusion by 56.2%, the expansion of mobile internet usage by 57.3% of the total population, in addition to more than 18 fintech supporting organisations, including incubators, accelerators, investors, and supporting organisations in all fields of fintech.
Furthermore, it emphasised that a sum of $250m has been injected into fintech and fintech-enabled start-ups over the past five years, from $0.9m in 2017. Moreover, there has been an uptrend in fintech deals by 10 times between 2017 and 2021 — from only three deals in 2017 to 32 deals in 2021. It also revealed that 43% of fintech and fintech-enabled start-ups are looking forward to raising seed funding.
It is worth noting that this report comes within the framework of the CBE’s efforts in promoting the expansion of fintech applications, monitoring developments in this vital industry, and providing a comprehensive overview of the capabilities and needs of fintech contributors, as well as identifying the potential areas for support, collaboration, and partnership among the fintech ecosystem’s stakeholders to achieve financial inclusion and Egypt’s digital transformation goals.
