The chairperson of the Egyptian Microfinance Federation (EMF), Mona Zulfikar, revealed in a press statement that that the size of the existing microfinance portfolio in the local market reached EGP 15.6bn at the end of the second quarter (Q2) of this year, up from EGP 7.5bn at the same period of 2017, which means a growth rate of 106%. She added that the active customer base in the sector increased by 33% in Q2 of 2018 to reach EGP 2.9 million clients compared to 2.1 million at the Q2 of 2017. Zulfikar further explained that women continue to own 52% of total funding while representing 70% of the beneficiaries. She continued to say that offering banking finance to microfinance companies, associations, and civil institutions was one of the main reasons behind this boom in the microfinance portfolio in the aforementioned period. The chairperson of the EMF, noted that associations and civil institutions came at the forefront in the number of beneficiaries active clients, with 1.8 million clients, and a market share of 63% in the Q2 of 2018. On the other hand, the associations and civil institutions ranked second in terms of total financing, with an active portfolio of EGP 5.6bn, representing 36% of the total market portfolio. Meanwhile, companies ranked second in terms of the number of the beneficiaries with a total number of beneficiaries of 733 thousand clients, representing over 25% from the total number of beneficiaries in the Q2 2018. Furthermore, companies came in third place in terms of its microfinance portfolio with a total active portfolio of EGP 4.1bn, representing 26.3% from Egypt's microfinance portfolio in the aforementioned period. Concerning banks, Zulfikar, noted that banks came in third place in terms of number of beneficiaries with 342 thousand clients, representing 11.7% of total beneficiaries at the end of the Q2 2018. Meanwhile, banks came at the forefront in terms of institutions which offer financing with a microfinance portfolio of EGP 5.8bn at the Q2 2018, acquiring 37.6% of Egypt's microfinance portfolio in the market.
