E-Finance plans to finalise a project for the mechanisation of public employees' salaries by the end of October, in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance and a number of public and private banks. Ahmed Yaqoob, Payment Advisers and Collection Sector Manager at E-Finance, said that issuing cards for public employees goes through three main stages. The first phase is uploading employees' data by the computational units of the localities in various governorates. The second phase is to issue cards through banks, while the third phase is to activate these cards once employees receive them from banks through the customer service centres at the company or the banks. Yaqoob affirmed that more than 4.5 million employees' data was uploaded through localities in governorates of Egypt. Banks issued 4m smart cards so far, of which 2m cards were activated, and the rest will be activated in the upcoming period. These cards were distributed to computational units to be delivered to employees according to their area. Yaqoob said E-Finance is responsible for offering technical support to employees when uploading their data and is responsible for salary payments from banks until cards are activated. He added that the company is now holding several meetings with banks and the Ministry of Finance to finalise activating 5.5m smart cards for employees in the next three months. According to Yaqoob, E-Finance contracted with 10 public and private universities so far in order to collect students' fees electronically, in cooperation with more than 31 banks, as well as E-Masary, and Bee companies. The universities are Cairo University, Ain Shams University, the German University in Cairo (GUC), Alexandria University, Helwan University, Tanta University, Menufia University, Damietta University, Suez University, and Sohag University. Contracts with these universities allow students and parents to pay fees electronically anywhere they want through the 31 banks, E-Masary or Bee. Payments through e-payment companies will be directly transferred to banks. According to Yaqoob, E-Finance plans to sign contracts with the remaining universities and public as well as private Egyptian institutions in the next period because of its huge collection channels that allow it to absorb a high capacity of information. Source: Daily News Egypt
