High-level sources at e-finance for financial and digital investments revealed that the company aims to enter the Saudi market next year as part of its strategic expansion plan through a partnership with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF). The sources told Daily News Egypt that the expansion of digital services inside Saudi Arabia is the purpose behind the Saudi sovereign's acquisition of a stake in the company earlier this year. The Sovereign Fund acquired about 25% by purchasing 462 million shares in e-finance at a price of EGP 15.98 per share with a total value of about EGP 7.5bn. They explained that the PIF has adopted an ambitious plan for e-finance in terms of expanding areas of growth in digital services in Saudi Arabia, which the company will start implementing in 2023. The sources also confirmed that e-finance recently hired a consulting company to discuss possible expansion opportunities in other markets and to identify attractive investment opportunities that have growth potential to focus on developing revenues and net profit in the coming years. Ibrahim Sarhan — Chairperson and Managing Director of the company — hinted earlier that the strategic partnership with the PIF comes in light of the group's efforts to diversify the shareholder base and attract foreign investments. Sarhan explained that the group also aims to expand its existing digital channels with the aim of providing innovative digital channels that contribute to meeting the needs of citizens from the various services provided and it concluded a strategic partnership with the Agriculture Bank of Egypt to automate 50 branches of the bank. The group seeks to maximise the benefit from the cooperation agreement signed between the Egyptian government and the UAE in the field of developing government work to establish the Technology Centres Network for Government Services (Egypt Services), which aims to provide government services to citizens in an easy way and without the need to go to government agencies, and based on the success of the experience of this project in Aswan, the group was assigned to repeat that experience across the country over the next three years.
