Planning, ICT Ministers Witness Signing Agreement between NI-Capital, Egyptian Company for Investment Services, ENPO to provide Investment Products

Minister of Planning and Economic Development and Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the National Investment Bank (NIB), Dr. Hala El Said, and the Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat have witnessed the accession of the Egyptian Company for Investment Services to the service agreement between NI Capital and the Egyptian National Post Organization (ENPO), in a special signing ceremony at the headquarters of the Ministry of Planning, in the presence of the heads of the companies and concerned bodies.
The strategic partnership aims to make various investment financial products available to everyone, which will help reach the categories that are difficult for investment management companies to reach, through Egypt Post offices, which are available nationwide. The partnership will also improve the investment scene in the Egyptian market by making various investment financial tools available to all segments of society, thus helping achieve financial inclusion and support the capital market through various investment funds.
During the signing ceremony, the Planning Minister stated that the parties to the agreement will work to raise financial and investment awareness among people, which would boost investment in the different financial products available in the Egyptian capital market and enhance economic growth. She added that the company's services will include distributing investment financial products to all the investment management companies in the Egyptian market that will contract with the Company to distribute the documents of the funds they manage.
El-Said stressed that the partnership is crucial to capitalize on the role of partners in reviving the capital markets through making different investment financial products, such as different types of investment funds, including cash, fixed-income, and stock funds, and any other investment product licensed by the Financial Regulatory Authority, available for all the segments of the society, nationwide. This will help increase the number of beneficiaries of investment in capital markets. Services will not only be delivered through Post Offices but will, in later stages, be available in a digital form, through mobile phone applications.
Furthermore, El-Said appreciated the partnership's contribution to enhancing the utilization and development of the available technological infrastructure. The first phase of the agreement will include linking Post Offices with the Egyptian Company for Investment Services, while the second phase will involve shifting to investment through digital channels to overcome all difficulties and save people’s time and effort. This reflects the State's keenness to develop the mechanisms of rendering services and simplifying the procedures for obtaining them through taking advantage of modern technologies.
The Planning Minister highlighted that the partnership complements the State's efforts to support the digital transformation. The outbreak of the pandemic pushed the State to give utmost importance to the ICT sector and the infrastructure needed for digitization, as part of promoting the digital transformation and boosting investments in this field to automate services, she added.
El-Said highlighted that the State made more investments in the information infrastructure and digitization sector, adding that the ICT sector is one of the main priority productive sectors of the structural reform program, along with the agriculture and industry sectors.
For his part, the ICT Minister underlined that the protocol is an embodiment of the productive cooperation between the government and the private sector to serve citizens and provide many safe investment instruments, in light of the interests of the Egyptian people, who like to save money. He said that Egypt Post is a huge institution representing a strategic partner for citizens in their economic, financial and monetary life. People trust Egypt Post and its offices spread nationwide, he added.
Talaat stated that the partnership will help utilize the capabilities of Egypt Post and its branches to provide a safe investment pool based on scientific studies, where citizens' funds and savings are managed by a group of highly skilled specialists, thus supporting financial inclusion.
The rollout of the new services is part of the efforts made to achieve a qualitative and functional development for Egypt Post and to improve the work environment within Post Offices to provide financial, postal, logistic, and community services seamlessly to citizens, Talaat said, adding that Egypt Post serves as a channel for delivering Digital Egypt services and is one of the pillars of enhancing financial inclusion. In addition, a plan is carried out to raise the efficiency of the 4,000 Post Offices out there, according to the latest global technologies, as half of the offices have been developed, while the other half is in progress.
Furthermore, the ICT Minister revealed that under the partnership, the channels through which the various investment financial products are rendered will be developed to include, in later stages, delivering such services through digital mechanisms along with Post Offices. This will help support the digital transformation efforts, which is a matter of high priority to the State, where the state sectors’ efforts are concerted to bring about Digital Egypt strategy, which will help adopt the latest technologies to achieve the transformation into an integrated digital society where citizens have access to quality digital government services.
NI Capital CEO and Managing Director Mohamed Metwally said that the accession of the Egyptian Company for Investment Services to the service agreement inked by NI Capital and ENPO represents an important strategic step to capitalize on the parties’ role in reviving capital markets through making different investment financial products available and easily accessible to everyone, nationwide, thus increasing the number of beneficiaries of investment in capital markets.
Within the framework of the cooperation, the parties to the agreement will exchange experiences and develop plans and policies in asset management, in addition to facilitating promotion and distribution in the Egyptian market through Post Offices, as a first phase, through linking the Offices with the Egyptian Company for Investment Services. In the second phase, the investment will be made through digital channels to overcome all difficulties and save people’s time and effort.
For his part, ENPO Chairman Sherif Farouk highlighted that the partnership comes within ENPO plan to develop its structure and expand its service offering through developing solutions and delivering various products through Egypt Post’s 4,000 Offices, thus easing citizens’ access to services.
Emad Ezzat, the CEO and Managing Director of Post for Investments (PFI), ENPO investment arm, stated that collaborating with NI Capital is within PFI strategy to diversify its investments in different sectors to transform ENPO into an all-encompassing entity and platform for providing services, to raise Egyptians’ living standards.
The CEO of the Egyptian Company for Investment Services and Managing Director of Private Equity at NI Capital Hazem Kamel stated that the Egyptian Company will cooperate with all the investment management companies in Egypt after completing the linking process with the Post Offices, to make their financial investment products available through a single platform.
Kamel added that the cooperation with Egypt Post is the Company’s first strategic partnership, as the latter is exploring ways to collaborate with more than one entity that would allow it to reach a broader customer base, in addition to digitizing all customer transactions after obtaining the necessary approvals from the Financial Regulatory Authority