Former president Mohamed Morsi died yesterday, collapsing in court after speaking for some five minutes during his latest trial. He was subsequently declared dead in hospital. We have full coverage in this morning’s Speed Round, below.

There’s lots of banking news this morning coming out of the Seamless North Africa fintech and ecommerce conference, which kicked off yesterday. CBE governor Tarek Amer revealed new details on sales of United Bank and Banque du Caire. On the latter, Amer implied that the stake that will be sold in an initial public offering might be reach 40%, while also noting that United Bank has new prospective buyers. We have the rundown on this and more in this morning’s Speed Round, below.

It’s a tech-heavy week: The IDC CIO Summit 2019 for the Middle East, Africa and Turkey is taking place this afternoon at the Marriott Zamalek. The summit will kick off with a keynote speech by Communications and ICT Minister Amr Talaat, according to a press release (pdf). Finally, Cairo Technology Week will wrap up tomorrow as we approach the end of a week well spent by tech enthusiasts.

Non-tech events we’re keeping an eye on include Pharos’ annual investor conference (pdf), which will kick off in Hurghada tomorrow.

PSA- If you are regulated by GAFI, you must start uploading financials to its website: Companies regulated by the General Authority for Freezones and Investments (GAFI) will have to start uploading digital copies of their financial statements to the authority’s database starting 1 October, according to a decision published yesterday. Copies will need to be uploaded three months after the end of each fiscal year.

President Abdelfattah El Sisi is on the road, having arrived yesterday in Belarus yesterday for a visit in which trade talks will feature heavily, according to a foreign ministry statement. The president next heads to Romania, where he will meet with Klaus Iohannis and legislators before giving a lecture Bucharest University of Economic Studies on Cairo-Bucharest relations. El Sisi had previously been expected to visit Mozambique to attend the US-Africa Business summit, which runs through Friday.

The House of Representatives general assembly is off this week. It will be back next week to debate the FY2019-2020 budget. Committee-level meetings and hearings continue in the meantime.

Korea’s deputy foreign minister for economic affairs will be in town on 18-21 June to talk trade and investment, according to an emailed statement (pdf).

Three days to go until Afcon 2019: Our readers need no reminder on which tournament is taking place this Friday. To mark the occasion, Reuters has put out profiles of the Egypt Afcon team that won't be hugely informative for die-hard Pharaohs fans (we’re guessing that’s most of you), but with the tournament drawing nearer it’s a useful guide for the uninitiated.

Our friends at Edita are proud sponsors of Afcon 2019, the company said in a press release (pdf).

Fed meets today: Further afield, emerging markets including Egypt holding their collective breath as the US Federal Open Market Committee begins today its two-day policy meeting to review the interest rate. The meeting comes as emerging markets are buffeted by the fallout from the trade war between China and the US. Central banks across EM have been lowering interest rates to stimulate their economies, with a hope that the Fed will cut interest rates to counter a rising USD.

What can we expect from the meeting? Both Fed Chairman Jay Powell and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi have “sharply” hauled down rate expectations, Deloitte said in its recent Global Economy in Charts briefing. Powell’s recent statement that the Fed is ready to act has markets expecting at least two rate cuts. Dragi has also signalled concern about slowing growth.

The Fed’s interest rate decision comes as global growth is expected to slow down to 3.3% this year from 3.6% in 2018. But the slowdown will be “concentrated in developed markets and China,” Deloitte says: Emerging markets are getting the better end of the stick, with growth expected to only slightly slow down by 0.1 ppt to 4.5%. Developed markets, however, will take a bigger hit to growth as they may see their economies grow at a 1.8% rate this year, down from the already faint 2.2% in 2018.

Key highlights from the Deloitte briefing:

• Chinese retail sales remain weak. And a key industrial indicator in the USA — the purchasing managers’ index — is at a two-year low;
• Escalating trade tensions between the two weighing in on the volume of global exports;
• The EU is expected to grow at its slowest pace in six years with Germany suffering from trade contraction, and Italy forecast to barely grow;
• UK has plunged into uncertainty with the whole Brexit thing.

Why we care about interest rates in the US and in emerging markets: The stability and relative strength of the EGP rests rather heavily at the moment on foreign holdings of Egyptian debt, right? And interest rates in Egypt are rather high right now. If the fed cuts rates — and if EM outside Egypt continue to do the same — our debt looks that much more attractive. While rate hikes in the United States pull money back into the US in search of safer returns — rate cuts often have the opposite effect. Similarly, there’s competition in EM for foreign capital wherein the higher interest rate (with relatively lower risk) tends to get all the attention.

In other international headlines worth knowing about this morning:

• The Iran nuclear agreement is on the ropes as looks set toexceed agreed-upon uranium stockpile limits on 27 June. (Associated Press)
• The US will send another 1,000 troops to the Middle East for “defensive purposes,” acting Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan said yesterday. (Reuters | Bloomberg)
• Mixed messages on Trump Palestine workshop: Israeli government officials will not be invited to attend the US-led workshop on Palestinian economic development in Bahrain next week, US officials have said, contradicting Israel’s announcement yesterday that it would send a delegation to the gathering. (Axios)