The National Bank of Egypt's (NBE) general assembly has agreed to increase the bank's authorised capital to EGP 100bn during its meeting last Thursday. At the same time, it approved increasing issued and paid-up capital from EGP 35bn to EGP 50bn. At the meeting, the assembly also approved EGP 1.5bn worth cash dividend for the Ministry of Finance, as the owner of the bank. The assembly approved the business results of the bank for the fiscal year (FY) 2018/19, ending on 30 June 2019, which revealed that the bank achieved net profit of EGP 20.2bn. By the end of June 2019, the bank's financial position increased to EGP 1.6trn, while its equity amounted to about EGP 110bn. According to a statement released by the bank, its loan portfolio achieved high growth of 19%, reaching EGP 542bn in June 2019. Customer deposits also increased 15% to about EGP 1.2trn. The corporate loan portfolio increased by 12% to EGP 411bn, while the portfolio of small and medium-sized projects grew 32% to EGP 58bn. The NBE's retail banking portfolio grew by 62% to EGP 73bn. In line with the state's orientation towards financial inclusion, the NBE's customer base reached 12.4 million in June 2019, a growth of 13%. The bank developed a strategy for electronic banking services, launching the second phase of Al Ahly Net, which has 1.6 million individual customers and roughly 13,000 corporate customers. The number of Phone Cash portfolio customers has now reached about 1.6 million. The bank's total social responsibility contributions have reached about EGP 6bn over 5 years, including EGP 1.5bn in FY 2018/19.
