As explained under questions three and four, in order to carry out any banking and/or non-banking financial services, a local entity must be established that would then need to obtain the license/licenses relevant to the activity/activities it wishes to carry out in Egypt. In order to obtain such license/licenses, different requirements must be satisfied, depending on the type of activity to be carried out. Broadly speaking, the applicant will need to meet the following requirements:

• The local entity will, in most cases, need to take the form of a joint-stock company.
• The local entity will need to meet certain minimum capital requirements, the value of which will depend on the type of activity to be carried out. For example, consumer finance companies need to have a minimum issued and paid capital of EGP 10 million. However, a company seeking to offer NBFS, including consumer finance, through fintech must have a minimum issued and paid-up capital of EGP 15 million or its equivalent in foreign currency per type of service to be provided.
• The local entity may be required to have a specific shareholding structure. For instance, microfinance companies need to have a minimum of three founding shareholders, including financial institutions holding at least 25% of the company’s issued capital, and qualified investors holding at least two-thirds of the company’s issued capital.
• Certain financial activities need to be carried out separately and may not be combined with other activities. For instance, a company seeking to carry out consumer finance activities must have consumer finance as its sole objective. The same requirement applies to microfinance services, payment facilitator services and payment aggregator services, amongst other activities.
• The local entity must have the required security, IT and data protection infrastructure.
• Generally, the shareholders and directors of the local entity will undergo security clearance checks during the incorporation process. In some cases, the shareholders of the local entity will be required to demonstrate that they have certain technical and financial capabilities.

Additional requirements may need to be met on a case-by-case basis.