Japan Tobacco International (JTI) is still lobbying to amend the contentious tender to offer additional licenses to sell tobacco products, proposing that either the government separates e-cigarettes from traditional cigarettes — as we reported last month — or offer multiple licenses, Al Mal reports.

Other things we’re keeping an eye on this morning:

• CIB has signed a five-year partnership agreement with Visa to support SMEs by offering Visa banking services to CIB’s SME clients, Hapi Journal reports citing a statement from the bank.
• The National Bank of Egypt (NBE) has received a license to accept payments through its mobile application “Tap on Phone,” the bank announced in a statement (pdf). This will allow suppliers to use the application to collect payments, instead of the traditional electronic point of sale methods
• Egyptians living and working abroad could soon have access to a new life ins. policy, to be developed by the Immigration Ministry, the Financial Regulatory Authority, and the Ins. Federation of Egypt under the terms of an MoU. A EGP 100k ins. policy will have a EGP 100 annual premium.