The Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) has finalised the procedures of bringing the Mortgage Finance Authority, the Egyptian Stocks Exchange (ESE) and the Private Insurance Funds under one supervisory body, state-owned news agency MENA has reported. As a result of the merger, all non-banking financial operations including mortgage financial affairs, leasing, factoring, securitisation, insurance activities and the ESE's trading operations now fall under the supervision of the EFSA. “The organisational structure of merging the three supervisory bodies under the EFSA has been finalised," Chairman of the EFSA Ashraf Al-Sharkawi told MENA. He added that the merger would improve supervision and help guarantee discipline in non-banking financial operations in Egypt. Al-Sharkawi affirmed that “the new organisational structure of the supervisory body is up to international standards." The organisation consists of five main divisions, namely the divisions of supervision and control, establishment and licensing, tools and financial reporting, information services and administrative and financial affairs. In addition, there are 22 central administrative bodies that will be attached to the EFSA. The merging of the three bodies under the EFSA was decided in accordance with presidential decree no. 10 issued in 2009, according to Sobhi Shehata, public relations manager at the EFSA. The EFSA has embarked on a number of regulatory reforms, especially in the ESE to boost the integrity of stock exchange trading. The newly introduced regulations by the EFSA include reviving the pre-marketing session and enforcing new regulations for changing the closing prices of stocks.
