Egypt's second-largest state lender, Banque Misr financed around 18 national projects in various sectors during the period from 2014 to March 2019, according to the lender's vice chairman Akef El-Maghraby. The bank contributed 53.8 billion Egyptian pounds ($3.3 billion) to finance the projects, while the total funding amounted to 171.55 billion pounds. These loans were directed to a host of sectors, including land and marine transport, electricity, oil and gas, real estate investment, petrochemicals, and agriculture, he added.
As for Islamic funding, a contracting company was offered a funding of 1.3 billion pounds for establishing buildings in the New Administrative Capital, while a funding of about 500 million pounds was injected into another company setting up roads and bridges, he noted. Future plans for syndicated loans Currently, the Egyptian bank considers contributing 12.7 billion pounds to 13 syndicated loans of 40.5 billion pounds to be directed to several sectors, including real estate investment, oil and gas, land transport, financial services, fertilizers, petrochemicals, and agriculture, El-Maghraby remarked. Arranging loans Banque Misr arranged about eight syndicated loans amounting to 20.45 billion pounds during the financial year 2018/2019 and contributed 10.05 billion pounds to such loans. Moreover, the bank contributed 1.2 billion pounds to Islamic loans valued at 3.3 billion pounds. SME portfolio El-Maghraby revealed that the bank's small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) funding portfolio reached 24 billion pounds at the end of last June, rising by 115 percent year-on-year. The bank aims to raise its SME funding portfolio to 45 billion pounds by 2020, he noted. Furthermore, the bank offered 9 billion pounds to 554,844 customers operating micro-enterprises, El-Maghraby highlighted, adding that the total number of current customers stood at 105,831 with a total funding value of 3.7 billion pounds at the end of last June. Retail banking portfolio At the end of July, the bank's retail banking portfolio amounted to 40 billion pounds, including personal loans of 33.973 million pounds, mortgage loans of 5.275 million pounds, and balances of credit cards totalling 645 million pounds. As part of its plans to achieve financial inclusion and foster digital transformation, the bank provided several retail services, including mobile wallets, card payments, and e-commerce services. Branches El-Maghraby expects the number of the bank's branches to reach 715 by the end of June 2020 from the current 658 spread across all governorates. Investments During the financial year 2018/2019, the bank's investments amounted to 31 billion pounds after generating 1.4 billion pounds from selling some of the bank's stakes for 3 billion pounds. In addition, the bank contributed about 1 billion pounds to the capital of some companies. NPL ratio The bank's non-performing loan (NPL) ratio fell to 2 percent in 2019 from 15.4 percent in 2014, thanks to new settlement agreements worth 233.4 million pounds during the financial year 2018/2019. Loan portfolio At the end of June 2019, Banque Misr's corporate and syndicated loan portfolio stood at 175.5 billion pounds, rising by 18 percent year-on-year. The bank's net loans and credit facilities portfolio registered 272.2 billion pounds, holding a market share of 14.25 percent. Under the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) SME funding initiative, the bank has offered loans of EGP 8 billion to about 13,000 customers to date.
