Egypt’s two largest national banks, Banque Misr and the National Bank of Egypt (NBE), have received approximately EGP 11 billion (about $357.65 million) in deposits from citizens for newly issued high-yield certificates of deposits (CDs) within a day of their release.
As reported by local news outlets, the two banks issued new CDs on Thursday that offer interest rates of up to 27% annually. This move by the banks comes after earlier CDs from 2023 were due to be cashed out by depositors.
According to financial analyst Ahmed Hamouda, the high-interest CDs are an effort to attract as much cash as possible at a time when citizens have lost trust in their local currency. He added that the new CDs do not compensate for the nearly 50% loss of value inflicted on the Egyptian pound over the past two years.
The planning ministry of Egypt has recently reported that the remittances from Egyptians working abroad in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2023/2024 dropped by almost 30% compared to the same period last year. The payments fell from $6.39 billion in July-September 2022 to $4.52 billion in the same period for 2023.
