The pre-eminent international finance magazine Euromoney has named Egypt's AlexBank – a member of Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo Group –as the best bank for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Middle Eastern markets. "Middle East's Best Bank for SMEs" award was presented late Wednesday at the 2016 Euromoney Middle East Awards for Excellence Dinner in Dubai. In recognising ALEXBANK for the award Euromoney Editor Clive Horwood highlighted how "the bank has grown its SME portfolio by a remarkable 39 percent over the past year. Crucially, the bank decided to decentralise SME banking, launching 10 SME business centres. The move was important as so much of SME financing requires direct, personal contact with local business owners." "The bank is working to automate and speed-up the credit process, increase financial awareness in the country, and introduced an online SME toolkit. If it continues this growth strategy next year, it will serve an even greater number of SMEs and support even more budding entrepreneurs, up and down the country." Horwood added. "ALEXBANK since last year worked hard to improve its commercial proposition for the SMEs and this recognition comes at a very strategic timing. It is known the interest of Egyptian competent regulatory bodies in a pro-active attitude and expansion plan for banks in the SMEs sector." "We are honored that ALEXBANK's SMEs Team is recognized for the efforts put during the last period," stated Dante Campioni, CEO and Managing Director of ALEXBANK. Regarded as the benchmark awards for financial services globally, the Euromoney Awards for Excellence are now in their 26th year. This year's awards process, which began in April, attracted over 600 submissions from the world's banks and brokerage houses. Euromoney's dedicated research team and awards panel then rated all the submissions on both quantitative and qualitative factors such as KPIs, financial ratios and innovation over the 12 month period to decide the award winners.
