Egypt's National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) advanced 43 places to 36th out of 90 countries around the world on the Mobile Money Regulatory Index, issued by the GSMA, for 2020, up from 79th in 2019. Egypt achieved the highest growth rate on the index. The index is an interactive tool that measures the effectiveness of mobile money regulatory frameworks. NTRA also ranked second among the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, recording 81 points in 2020 compared to 69 points in 2019. This is part of NTRA's vision to develop the Egyptian ICT market and the services provided in it to become one of the world's leading markets in terms of the spread and use of the service. It is worth noting that the evaluation is carried out through several main axes, most importantly the organizational structure of service provision and the ease of procedures of opening and using portfolios, the spread and availability of outlets for users to obtain services, and the maximum limits for financial transactions executed on the portfolios. Hossam El-Gamal, CEO of NTRA, said that the improvement of Egypt's international ranking in the index of regulations for electronic wallets for mobile phones is in line with the state's strategy to support the process of digital transformation and financial inclusion. He added that the initiatives and regulatory frameworks issued by the agency during 2020, contributed to improving Egypt's ranking. NTRA had taken several measures to facilitate the opening and registration procedures for wallets and expanding the scope of their uses, increasing the maximum limits for daily operations using electronic wallets from EGP 6,000 to EGP 30,000, increasing the maximum limits for monthly operations from EGP 50,000 to EGP 100,000, and coordinating with companies to eliminate commissions on transfers from any mobile phone wallet to another. The Agency had issued a report for the first half of 2021 on indicators of the use of electronic wallets for mobile phones. The total number of electronic wallets reached 16.3 million wallets across the country, and the number of operations executed reached 81 million electronic transactions. By comparing the results of the report between the first half of the year 2021 and the first half of 2020, an increase in indicators of the use of electronic wallets was noted by 175% in the number of transactions carried out using wallets, by 300% in the number of transfers from one wallet to another, by 132% in the number of withdrawals, and by 109% in the number of deposits.
