CAIRO: In Egypt, where the colloquial term for any credit card is "visa, it is easy to forget that a host of financial service companies are here, vying for a slice of the market presented by Egypt's recent push toward banking. MasterCard is one of these firms. From a regional office in Dubai, the financial company oversees 16 countries in the Middle East and Levant, in a swath sweeping from Pakistan to Egypt. Egypt is its third largest market in this region, behind the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The company has a small office here, with four staff including a country director. "Egypt provides a very nice base of customers for debit products, said Shaun Rashid, head of the regional office. "Saudi is very concentrated in terms of banking customers, so it's more focused on premium products such as platinum or world. With its big population and heavily cash-based economy, Egypt has a lot of space for financial services to grow, Rashid said. The company tries to tailor products for specific customers, he said. For instance, all 16 countries in MasterCard's Middle East and Levant region are Muslim, and so the company offers Islamic products. "In its purest sense, MasterCard can be very Islamic, Rashid said. "If you pay off your balance then there is no question of any Sharia non-compliance. They also develop specific products, which calibrate payments with Sharia, drawing on a council of Islamic scholars, he said. On the producer side, MasterCard helps businesses and institutions install payment systems. "We think we have quite a bit of opportunity in expanding the acceptance infrastructure in Egypt, said Rashid. Gas stations and schools are their most immediate targets, according to Magdy Hassan, MasterCard's country director. MasterCard does not release country specific earnings, so it is difficult to get a sense of exactly how large their business is here and how it has grown. The financial crisis, while not directly impacting MasterCard, could pose a number of challenges. "Our customers are generally the banks, Rashid said. "We know they are looking at their own portfolios and their own strategies in light of what is happening . [but] we are not looking at any marked changes in our strategies, because ours is a support function. The banking system in Egypt is relatively shielded from the crisis, analysts say, because it has not adopted the complex derivatives at the heart of the much bad debt. The sector's loan-to-deposit ratio in generally is quite low, meaning most banks have plenty of cash on hand to weather the credit squeeze. For its part, MasterCard works with a "very secluded area of any retail bank, in the payment solutions division, which is typically tucked within the assets division, Rashid said. At a conference here on Monday, MasterCard introduced its "Worldwide Centers of Commerce Emerging Markets Index, a ranking of developing-world cities' economic clout. Cairo ranked 44 among the top 65 emerging market cities said to be driving world growth. The rankings are based on criteria such as business environment, quality of urban life, security risk and quality of financial services. In the Middle East and North Africa, Beirut came in at 60, while Tunis was ranked 40. Dubai, another regional hub, was not included in the count, having recently jumped to a "developed city. China fared better than any other country, with Shanghai and Beijing taking the top two spots. Half of the top 30 cities were Chinese. Evidencing the abruptness of that nation's rise, Cairo fell 34 spots below Shenzhen, which was converted from a fishing village less than three decades ago. "On almost all dimensions other than the quality of urban life, [China] scored very, very high, Rashid said. Conference speakers stressed that Cairo's relatively low ranking should not rattle observers. "Regardless of its global ranking, we believe it's quite an achievement for Cairo to make the list, Rashid said. One upshot of Cairo's inclusion on the list is that it will spread more information about Egypt to potential investors, Angus Blair, head of research at investment bank Beltone Financial, told journalists at the conference. "If you have more attention, you have more interest, he said. To illustrate Egypt's potential, Blair pointed to the story of his grandparents. In the aftermath World War II, they survived on rations in the United Kingdom, he said. "Egypt, at that stage, was a land of plenty, he said. "Worlds change.
